Corovest has bought a 50% stake in the UK-based Wichford Property Fund Management for £11.0 million.

Listed property loan stock companies SA Reit and Redefine Income Fund will redevelop a Cape Town central business district (CBD) site to create a state-of-the-art 18-storey office block valued at more than R600m.

The Madison stable of listed property companies, including Madison itself, all issued cautionary announcements yesterday indicating they were considering a proposal that could see them merge into a single property fund.

Although there is likely to be corporate activity in the form of mergers, even they will be affected by the pricing of units

Every listed property fund that has reported results so far this year has managed to raise income payouts by more than 10%. That suggests that the commercial property market - unlike its residential counterpart - still has some steam left

South Africa's largest JSE-listed property asset manager, Madison Property Fund Managers has achieved a total distribution of 76 cents per linked unit for the year ended 31 December 2007, 30% higher than the annualized maiden distribution of 39 cents for 2006

Property shares appear to be settling around 15% below their level of late last year, disconnecting from the recovery in the overall JSE

Madison Property Fund Managers said yesterday that tenants in the fully let building were busy taking occupation

Despite the nine interest rate increases since mid-2006, South African property investors are sitting rather pretty compared to their American, British and European counterparts.

MADISON Leasing has signed up over 55000m² of new commercial property leases in the past six months and boosted the rental income of its property loan stock company clients, ApexHi Properties and Redefine Income Fund.