Property-investment boom boosts Rich List kingpins
PROPERTY baron John Whittaker, one of Britain’s richest men and deputy chair of JSE-listed Intu Properties, is leading the rise of directors and executives in real estate who find themselves increasingly wealthy thanks to a bull run on property investments.
Whittaker who in this year’s Rich List unseated Naspers’s Koos Bekker from the third spot, has moved up from sixth position last year. He has also moved ahead of Aspen Pharmacare founder Stephen Saad and Motsepe, who ranked fourth and fifth respectively last year.
Property as an asset class has outperformed equities this year and recorded the highest total return of 20.21%.
This was followed by equities at 11.64% and leaving South African cash and bonds as investments trailing in the dust, according to the October edition of the South African Listed Property Review by Catalyst Fund Managers.
Whittaker, a self-made billionaire and the 19th-richest man in the UK, has holdings valued at R23.5-billion on the JSE. Forbes magazine estimates his net worth to be $2.6-billion. He holds a quarter of Intu.
Fortress Income Fund B, the JSE’s best-performing property stock for 2014, was the Sunday Times Top 100 Companies winner — proving this as the year of the property sector.
Other property directors who moved up the Rich List include Desmond de Beer, a director of New Europe Property Investments and MD of Resilient Property Income Fund. De Beer is ranked 15th on the Rich List from 22nd last year with holdings worth R4.5-billion.
He is followed by Graeme Gordon, a nonexecutive director of Capital & Counties, a company that has benefited from a surge in property prices in London. It has delivered an annualised total return to shareholders
SELF-MADE: John Whittaker of 47.8% during the past five years. Gordon moved up four places to 21 with holdings worth R2.9-billion.
But the property industry underperforms other sectors when remunerating management staff.
The struggling mining sector has paid out the most to executives, with over R561.8-million spent on salaries, bonuses, levies and gains on shares.
On the index comparing CEO pay, Intu’s CEO, David Fischel, appears at position 49 with a package of R20.6million. He is the only property CEO ranked among the top 50 paid CEOs.
John Orford, Old Mutual Conservative Fund Manager, said this week that European equities were expected to offer the best returns in 2016. Global monetary policy was expected to remain “very easy” as a result. “Global equities remain our preferred asset class on a risk-adjusted basis, with developed markets more attractive than emerging markets.”