Vukile Property Fund has concluded an agreement with Encha Properties to acquire a portfolio of five investment-grade, predominantly national government-tenanted properties from Encha for an approximate R1.4 billion

Over the last few weeks a number of listed property funds announced financial results for either 6 months or full year, here is a recap of the highlights: 

THE cost of capital for property funds has fallen significantly, due to the decline in bond and listed property yields that have accompanied falling interest rates, but by contrast, direct property prices have done little.

Leading JSE shopping centre fund, Hyprop, reported distributions up 6,8% to 409 cents a unit for the year to December 2012

Although listed property was the best performing asset class in the South African market, giving investors 36% in total returns, the cooling off in returns is inevitable.

Growthpoint Properties says that for the six months ended December 2012‚ its distribution per linked unit is forecast to be between 7% and 7.5%.

South Africa’s listed property sector gained 1.4% during the week ended 15 February 2013. Since the start of the year, both the listed property sector and the FTSE/JSE All Share Index have returned 3.7%, while the bond market has returned just 0.6%.

SA Equities recorded the highest total return (+ 3.23%) of the four traditional asset classes for January. 

South Africa’s listed property sector has started 2013 by climbing 4% in just the first three weeks of trading. The sector climbed 0.60% during the week ending 25 January 2013, despite significant rand weakness and an increase in bond yields. 

South African listed property outperformed local bonds, equities and cash in 2012. Marc Wainer, CEO of Redefine Properties, says that 2013 will be another good year for listed property but it is unlikely to match the outperformance of 2012.