Related Articles
Top Stories
May 27 2012 11:21
There's a price war raging between South Africa's cellphone networks after Cell C lowered the rates of its prepaid calls by more than 34%.
May 27 2012 11:49
The country's 200 000-odd Tupperware agents are angry about the counterfeit products being sold as the real McCoy.
May 27 2012 13:09
The oversupply of golf estates has claimed another victim.
Johannesburg - JSE-listed property loan stock company Vukile (VKE), which last week announced that it had applied for a dual listing on the Namibian stock exchange (NSX), has expanded its Namibian portfolio through the acquisition of BPI House in Windhoek for approximately R113m.
BPI House is an A-grade office and retail complex in the heart of the Windhoek CBD. It has a total gross lettable area of 12 826m² and a blue-chip tenant line-up which includes the government of Namibia, Pick 'n Pay, Truworths, Dunns, Engen, Mobile Telecom Company and Ernst & Young.
The anticipated net yield is 9.1% in the first year.
Chief executive Gerhard van Zyl said since the Vukile board had decided to expand its presence in Namibia the company had looked at a number of investment opportunities in that country.
He noted that the Namibian economy was buoyant and that with land and construction costs escalating, it was expected that gross office and retail rentals in Windhoek could shortly exceed the R100/m² level.
"BPI House, which was recently extensively upgraded, has a prime location between Independence Avenue and Werner List Street, two of the busiest thoroughfares in Windhoek. It also has very good tenants, with more than 70% of the gross rent coming from national companies and government departments, and a low vacancy rate," Van Zyl said.
Vukile already owns seven commercial properties in Namibia with a combined gross lettable area of some 50 000m² and a value of more than R250m.
The BPI acquisition increases the company's investment in Namibia to more than R360m. Van Zyl said the scale of the investment demonstrates Vukile's confidence in Namibia as well as the desirability of a listing on the NSX.
The company's total Southern African portfolio is worth almost R4bn.