Vukile Property Fund lifts distribution in full-year results

In the year ended March 2015‚ the company reported a 14.1% rise in headline earnings per share (HEPS) to 186.81c‚ while net asset value per share grew by 14.6% to R17.16.

Vukile declared a final distribution of 77.68c per share‚ bringing the total distribution for the year to 136.77c up 8.1% from the year-earlier period.

"During the past financial year‚ the property portfolio performed very well in a difficult economic environment. The retail sector continued to outperform the other sectors while the industrial sector continued showing signs of improvement.

"The commercial sector still battled with vacancies in selected properties due to an oversupply of space in those nodes ... while the expiry profile improved substantially compared to previous reporting periods‚ thereby significantly reducing the risk in the portfolio‚" the company said.

The group property portfolio at 31 March 2015 consisted of 93 properties with a total market value of R13.3bn‚ with an average value of R143m per property.

The portfolio is well represented in most of the South African provinces and Namibia. About 87% of the gross income is derived from Gauteng‚ KwaZulu-Natal‚ Western Cape and Namibia.

Looking ahead‚ Vukile said with the economy unable to generate any meaningful growth‚ it expected tough trading conditions to continue into the year ahead.

"We do‚ however‚ expect to deliver growth in distributions of between 7% and 8% for the year ending March 2016 driven off a strong focus on improving operational efficiencies and the benefits of our accretive acquisitions coming through for the full year‚" the company said.

Vukile said it would remain conservatively geared and hedged in the face of an expected rise in interest rates.

"We will continue to look for accretive acquisitions that are in line with our retail strategy as well as begin looking at opportunities in new markets both locally and abroad. The overall focus of Vukile remains to build a high-quality‚ low-risk portfolio with a high-quality earnings stream that is capable of generating stable long-term returns‚" the company said.