Property evaluation
Transparency, compliance and maturity of corporate and government allowes greater expenditure in infrastructure
AUSTRALIA’S only independent property valuations and advisory services firm, Acumentis gave an insight into their work and the importance of asset and property valuations in Suva last week.
Present at the event were industry members from private and public firms including financial institutions.
National director asset advisory Nick Funnell said valuations provided certainty of the worth of an asset and a comprehensive and compliant valuation could drive investments.
Apart from providing services for residential, agribusiness, commercial and insurance, the firm has provided various asset advisory services for government and private entities in Australia and New Zealand.
Funnell said this ranged from justice and correction facilities, airports, manufacturing plants, local government portfolios, zoos, stadiums, health, universities and the defence force.
He said organisations should have a transparent knowledge of their assets, strategic asset management plan, and how they were going to manage and develop their assets into the future.
“The more mature an organisation, the more transparent, and a higher level of compliance with international accounting standards.”
Mr Funnell added that transparency, compliance and maturity of corporate and government agencies increased accessibility to investment and debt which allowed greater expenditure in critical infrastructure to drive an economy.
He said over the last six months, Acumentis engaged with the Fiji National University to undertake financial reporting insurance valuations for their land, buildings and structures.
“We partnered with a local valuation business, Rolle Associates to undertake all the land valuations; much better to rely on local experience in relation to local market conditions and the impact on them.
“Our team came out and physically inspected their campuses and assets, which were quite a lot.
“We took condition assessments of every single building and structure; and for all the significant structures that we needed to be componentised, we provided replacement costs and fair value along with all the other conditions.”
Director client engagement and government relations Nigel Wilson said while valuations might not be an exciting thing, it was necessary.
“If you don’t take a snapshot of all your assets now you don’t know how to go forward and I think a lot of different businesses and utilities in Fiji haven’t had a proper valuation since before Covid.
“So there is an opportunity for us to help; we’re not trying to necessarily compete with the local mortgage market.”
Mr Wilson added that the firm intended to open an office in Fiji in the future with hopes of gaining clients from large property portfolios.
“We’re bringing something new to the table in asset advisory; we do the residential stuff in Australia but we don’t want to come in and compete with the local valuers.
“That’s why we are doing a joint venture with Rolle, that is the first step. Then we eventually set up an office when we win enough work to make it worthwhile.”