Emira Property Fund has purchased two properties from developers, RMB Properties, for a total of nearly R120m

The Public Investment Corporation (PIC), which plans to invest about R70bn in property assets over the next five years, is increasingly going to be competing with listed property companies for scarce property stock

For the second year in succession Emira Property Fund has performed exceptionally well in international research house, Investment Property Databank (IPD’s), annual survey into listed property funds in South Africa

Emira Property Fund, which recently acquired smaller property loan stock company, Freestone Property Holdings Ltd, has received Board approval to spend a total of R254m on new property developments and refurbishments to existing properties over the next nine months

The price of listed property fund ApexHi's C units are up a staggering 245% in six months. Not too shabby a return for investors who bought the stock at listing in October 2006 as a higher-risk alternative to ApexHi's existing A and B units. C units closed at 280c on listing day and touched 690c/share last Wednesday.

At present, the six Property Unit Trusts (PUTs) listed on the JSE Securities Exchange are invested in various combinations of commercial, industrial and retail property but, as yet, they have no exposure to residential property.

Listed property unit trust Emira Property Fund on Friday reported double-digit distribution growth for the six months to December in line with the rest of the listed property sector.

The Emira Property Fund has declared a distribution of 40.10 cents per participatory interest for the six months ended on the 31st December 2006 – 10% up on the comparable period in 2005.

Reinforcing its strong growth trend JSE-listed Freestone Property Holdings posted a 22% increase in its distribution for the interim period to December 2006. The distribution growth yielded a total return for the interim period of 38%, exceeding the 30% total return of the SA Listed Property Index.

The market can expect to see even more consolidation in the South African listed property sector this year, with bigger players acquiring smaller companies and friendly mergers between others.