TOWER GENERATES R396M

LISTED Tower Property Fund has generated a total of R396 million from asset management initiatives in the current financial year that it has largely used to repay debt and acquire an industrial property in Zagreb, Croatia. The company said yesterday that these asset management initiatives included the sale of the Pick n Pay Distribution Centre in Pinetown in KwaZulu-Natal for R96m and the R300m investment in TPF International by Oryx Properties through a subscription and sale of TPF shares. It said that of the total proceeds, R120m was used to partially repay TPF’s euro loan facilities with Standard Bank, R80m to partially repay Tower’s South African loan access facilities, R100m to acquire the Zagreb industrial property last month, R90m to partially repay Tower’s South African loan facilities with Standard Bank and R6m to date to repurchase 693 906 Tower shares. Tower added that operationally it had reduced its total portfolio vacancies from 5 percent at end-May this year to 4.6 percent; continued to actively market its non-core properties; and had gone to market on the proposed new residential apartments that it intended adding to its Old Cape Quarter property.

It said the residential property market was more challenging than it had been for some time due to macro-economic conditions in South Africa. However, Tower said it was confident of its product at Old Cape Quarter because of the unique nature of the De Waterkant precinct, where property selling prices continued to outperform other prominent areas in the Western Cape due to its unique heritage status and proximity to the CBD of Cape Town. Tower has not provided distribution guidance for the year to May next year but indicated that net income was expected to remain flat. | Roy Cokayne