It’s been over a year since the pandemic-induced stock market meltdown and since South Africa entered hard lockdown, and it is time to look back and examine what this period has taught us as an industry.

FNB Commercial Property Finance held its Quarterly Property Market briefing today and the focus was on key Retail Property themes.

Johannesburg Stock Exchange listed EPP (JSE: EPP), Poland’s biggest retail landlord, reported results for the year ended 31 December 2020 with distributable earnings reaching €5.56 cents per share, exceeding its guidance of between €4.75 and €5.25 cents.

Fairvest Property Holdings Limited (“Fairvest”) today announced results for the six months to December 2020 that portrayed strong improvements in property fundamentals and a pleasing 7.2% increase in distribution against the most recent six months to 30 June 2020, which were at the height of the COVID-19 lockdown.

JSE-listed REIT, Redefine Properties, says its balance sheet is in a stronger position than it was before the COVID-19 pandemic struck and that it should be well-positioned to take advantage of opportunities by the end of the financial year in August. 

In this note, we continue with the 4th quarter 2020 results of our FNB Commercial Property Broker Survey, which surveys a sample of commercial property brokers in the 6 major metros of South Africa, ie. City of Joburg and Ekurhuleni (Greater Johannesburg), Tshwane, Ethekwini, City of Cape Town and Nelson Mandela Bay.

Real estate has long been a rewarding sector of the financial markets. Like all sectors, share prices and the underlying fundamentals of commercial property assets weakened in early 2020, as South Africa and the rest of the world came to grips with managing through the pandemic, with some sectors suffering more than others.

The South African Reserve Bank has just announced that it is holding the repo rate steady, as South Africa battles the second wave of the COVID-19.

JSE listed diversified real estate investment trust Redefine Properties has announced the decision by its Board to resolve to not pay a dividend in respect of FY2020 in the face of ongoing Covid-19 uncertainty.

JSE-listed Accelerate Property Fund today reported financial results for the six months ended 30 September 2020.