Medium-sized property loan stock company Spearhead Property Holdings was placed 12th overall in the annual Finweek Top 200 listed companies survey.

Spearhead, which has a market capitalisation of about R1,2bn and asset base of R1,5bn, was highest ranked of all real estate companies.

The survey, conducted by McGregor BFA, tracked the results of all South African listed companies over the past five years.

In the top position was Highveld Steel and Vanadium, while Cashbuild was second overall.

Group Five was rated seventh overall, while Digicor and Rainbow were placed ninth and 10th, respectively.

Spearhead CEO Mike Flax said the survey focused on returns on assets, returns on equity, and growth in profitability.

He attributed Spearhead's position to its focus on growing its distributions to unitholders.

Flax said the company aimed to obtain a top 10 position. "If we continue growing our distributions at the level we have, we should do it next year."

He said Spearhead's average distribution growth over the past six years was 13% a year. He said the company, which is predominantly Cape Town-based, with 95% of its property portfolio situated there, focused on Cape Town and that "insider knowledge" of the market gave it the ability to see opportunities ahead of others.

Mariette Warner, head of property funds at Stanlib Asset Management, said that ever since Spearhead listed on the JSE in the late 1990s, it had focused on improving the quality of the original property portfolio and had been "very successful" with its property development pipeline.

Warner said Spearhead's developments had generated returns "far in excess of the average listed property portfolio" and its management was "highly rated" by asset managers.

Business Day
Publisher: I-Net Bridge
Source: I-Net Bridge