Rebosis sorts out dispute
VALUATION: RESTATEMENT OF LAST YEAR’S RESULTS ENSURES CLEAN AUDIT FOR 2019/2020 Did not declare dividend for a second consecutive financial year.
Debt-laden Rebosis Property Fund, which has a record South African listed property sector loan-to-value (LTV) ratio of 72.4%, has resolved its differences with its auditors BDO South Africa Incorporated over property valuations.
During a results presentation on Friday for its financial year ended 31 August, the group revealed that its portfolio had been written down from R15.6 billion to R13.2 billion for its 2019 financial year.
The dispute around valuations led to BDO South Africa giving the group a qualified audit last year.
But the matter has now been resolved, with Rebosis accepting the R2.4 billion devaluation, which has effectively resulted in the group now getting a clean audit for both its 2019 and 2020 financial results.
This has, however, seen the group’s LTV for the year to the end of August 2019 being restated from 64.5% to 75.7%.
For its 2020 financial year, the group’s LTV has been reduced to 72.4% with the disposal of Mdantsane Shopping Centre to Vukile Property Fund as well as an “increase” in valuations.
“Rebosis has resolved its differences with its auditors, which has seen a rebase in valuations,” said Rebosis founder and CEO Sisa Ngebulana. “This has resulted in a clean audit being issued for our 2020 financial year, as well as a revised clean audit on the 2019 financial year numbers.”
The group had to delay the release of its latest financial results by a few days last week due to the issue.
Despite the “differences” with its auditors over last year’s valuations, Rebosis now seems to be trumping up the rebasing of valuations, even with its LTV effectively spiking further.
“Our decision to significantly write down and restate our portfolio in the prior financial year stood us in good stead,” Ngebulana noted in a media statement on the group’s latest results.
“The write-downs were mainly as a result of poor economic activity on retail and outstanding office lease renewals that impacted on the valuation of our properties.
“Those leases have now been renewed, resulting in a R391 million increase in asset value, based on the restated numbers,” he said.
“The rising valuation trajectory of our portfolio is countercyclical to the market and as a result of it bottoming out in the prior financial year. This augurs well for the future,” added Ngebulana.
Rebosis, which faced financial woes even before the Covid-19 crunch, is not declaring a dividend for a second consecutive financial year (to the end of August 2020). Its market cap has plunged more than 95% over the last three years.
While SA’s deteriorating economic and property market conditions have contributed, the stock has been hit by the group’s failed venture into the UK and overpaying for local retail assets such as Forest Hill City Shopping Centre (Centurion) and Baywest Mall in Nelson Mandela Bay (Port Elizabeth).
Though its portfolio – made up of retail and office property assets – is valued at more than R13 billion, Rebosis’s debt was just over R10 billion last year.
Considering the group has breached its debt covenant levels, some analysts and minority shareholders have asked why major lenders like Nedbank have not “called in” its loans.
The group is looking to dispose of its office portfolio and needs to sell R6 billion of assets to bring its LTV to below 40%. It has R1 billion of assets currently “held for sale”.
For its 2020 financial year to the end of August, Rebosis settled R500 million in debt, largely due to the disposal of Mdantsane Shopping Centre. This has seen the group’s total debt reduced from R10.1 billion to R9.5 billion.