Nick Wilson
Property Editor GROWTHPOINT Properties, SA’s largest listed property company by market capitalisation and property asset value, announced yesterday it would be issuing 100 million new linked units to raise R1,65bn to partly fund various acquisitions and developments “that are currently in progress”. Norbert Sasse, CEO of Growthpoint, which has a market capitalisation of close to R17bn and property assets valued at more than R22bn, said the Public Investment Corporation (PIC) had agreed to subscribe for these units, which would be issued at R16, 50. The new issue was at a premium to the Growthpoint unit price, which had been trading in the R15,70-R15,90 range over the past couple of days. Sasse said Growthpoint’s existing unitholders would be given the right to participate via a claw-back offer that would entitle them to acquire units in the new issue and prevent dilution. For example, Old Mutual, which holds 13% of Growthpoint, would have the right to subscribe for 13-million or 13% of the 100 million units to prevent any dilution to its existing holdings if it so wished. The PIC wants to increase its interest in Growthpoint and would obviously want to acquire all the units, but Growthpoint did not want to “take away existing unitholders’ rights”. If an existing unitholder wanted to exercise his right to claw back units, he would have to pay the same price of the new units. Sasse said that if all Growthpoint unitholders elected to claw back what they were entitled to, the PIC, which holds about 5% of Growthpoint, would not increase its unitholding at all. “Because the units are at a slight premium one might find that not all unitholders follow their rights and that the PIC picks up the bulk of the 100-million units,” he said. Growthpoint has property acquisitions and developments in the pipeline worth more than R4bn.Business Day
Publisher: I-Net Bridge
Source: I-Net Bridge
