Focus on Poland as Redefine increases its asset exposure

LISTED Redefine anticipates increasing its asset exposure to international geographies over time from 21 percent to between 25 and 30 percent, with Poland and logistics the focus in its current financial year.

Andrew Konig, the chief executive of Redefine, said Poland was their focus from an offshore investment perspective, because the logistics sector in that country was “piping hot”.

Konig said Redefine had partnered with Panattoni, the strongest developer in that region, and had access to a number of development opportunities.

He said Redefine could spend up to e1 billion (R16.25bn) if it pursued all the opportunities available to it, but stressed it would not “do all of that”.

Konig stressed Redefine was not looking to invest elsewhere internationally, because it “has its hands full in Poland for now”.

He said Poland was effectively the gateway into Western Europe.

“What made the opportunity attractive was the fact that they have legislated the control of agricultural land and it has become difficult to rezone to industrial.”

Konig said Redefine last year had an almost equal split of its international assets spread between Australia, UK and Poland. But he said Poland had grown quite considerably in the year to August to 13 percent, the value of its UK assets had shrunk because of a write-down in the investment by R754m and its Australian assets were considerably reduced because of the sale of its 50 percent in Northpoint Tower and the bulk of its remaining equity interest in Cromwell for a total of R8.9bn.

Redefine yesterday reported an 8.2 percent growth in distributable income to R5.2bn in the year to August, the first time it had breached the R5bn mark. This contributed towards Redefine increasing total distributions a share for the year by 5.5 percent to 97.10 cents from 92c.

Property assets under management expanded by R7.2bn to R91.3bn, with about R72bn of that in South Africa. Recurring income grew 6.9 percent and overall occupancies improved to 95.5 percent. Distributable income growth was expected to range between 4 and 5 percent for Redefine’s 2019 financial year.

Redefine shares gained 2.05 percent on the JSE yesterday to close at R9.95.