Unlisted R6bn property fund Attfund says it has no immediate plans to include any of its properties in listed unit trust Sycom Property Fund.

There was a lot of market speculation that this was indeed Attfund's plan after Grapnel Property Group disposed of its interest in management company Sycom Property Fund Managers to Parkdev for an undisclosed sum in May.

Sycom Property Fund Managers is the management company of property unit trust Sycom Property Fund. Parkdev is the asset manager of unlisted property fund Attfund.

Attfund is one of the biggest unlisted funds in SA.

Including the recent acquisition of the Cape Gate retail centre, it has more than R6bn worth of property assets. Both Sycom and Attfund are blue-chip funds with similar property assets.

But Louis van der Watt, an executive director of Attfund, said it had no plans in the immediate future to place properties in Sycom.

Van der Watt said Attfund owned a 23% interest in Sycom Property Fund.

He said one of the reasons for Parkdev buying the asset management company of Sycom Property Fund was to enhance the investment in Sycom.

"At this stage that is why the management company was bought.

"It was to enhance our investments, not necessarily to do a merger between Sycom and Attfund," said Van der Watt.

But he did not rule out a merger at a later date.

One option, if a merger was indeed the chosen course of action, would be to do a reverse listing of Attfund into Sycom.

Attfund's property portfolio consists mainly of regional shopping centres.

Van der Watt said Parkdev had a "certain way" of managing these properties cost-effectively, and wanted to apply the experiences with Attfund's portfolio to Sycom's portfolio.

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Publisher: I-Net Bridge
Source: I-Net Bridge