Deep value in Wiese’s Tradehold

There may be plenty of upside to be had if the plan to separately list its SA industrial portfolio pans out

Christo Wiese-backed Tradehold, which has historically been a pure rand hedge play, has successfully reinvented itself over the past 2½ years. But it seems the market hasn’t bought into the simpler structure, in which 60% of its assets are now based in SA.

Previously, Tradehold’s portfolio was something of a hodgepodge. It spanned the financial services and real estate sectors, with the bulk of its assets being UK shopping centres. Most of those shopping centres were bought years ago through the various offshore business ventures of Wiese, who still chairs Tradehold and owns 49.7% of it.

But last year Tradehold unbundled its financial services division under a separate Jselisting (Mettle Investments). Tradehold’s management, led by joint CEOS, Sa-based Friedrich Esterhuyse and London-based Tim Vaughan, has also sold most of the company’s interests in Mozambique, Zambia and Botswana over the past 18 months. This included a number of retail properties and a housing estate developed for the US embassy in the Mozambican capital, Maputo.

More critically, Tradehold entered the SA property market for the first time in December 2016 by buying the Collins Group, a fourth-generation, family-owned developer which owned an R8.7bn portfolio of industrial and logistics properties. Overnight, this made Tradehold one of SA’S largest owners of warehouse and distribution centres — a smart move, considering it has been the best-performing subsector of the SA real estate market in recent times.

The Collins acquisition also means Tradehold is no longer a Uk-focused company. Its Sabased industrial portfolio now accounts for close to 60% of total assets worth £859m, while the UK portfolio makes up only 30% of Trade