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Johannesburg - Listed property loan stock company Vukile Property Fund (VKE) has reported an attributable profit of R233m for the year to end-March 2005, its first annual results since its listing in June 2004.
The company declared a final distribution of 31.5 cents per linked unit on June 1, for a total of 61.5 cents for the year, ahead of its prospectus forecast of 60.25 cents per linked unit.
Gross property revenue for the period came in at R401m, while net profit after tax amounted to R247m and headline earnings
to R142m.
The yield per linked unit was 12.3% on the issue price
of 500 cents, compared to the initial forecast of 12.05%.
Vukile CEO Gerhard van Zyl said one of the highlights of Vukile's first year had been its acquisition of 74.347% of the issued linked units of listed loan stock company MICC, through a paper swap.
The transaction equated to the acquisition by Vukile of a R740m property portfolio and boosted the value of its combined property holdings to more than R3bn.
Van Zyl said Vukile still intended to acquire the MICC linked units it did not already own and was considering ways of achieving this objective.
In the meantime, he and Vukile financial director Mike Potts had joined the MICC board and Vukile had assumed responsibility for MICC's management and administration functions through a management contract between the two companies.
Van Zyl also noted that Vukile was investigating the possible securitisation of a major portion of its long-term debt, a move that could achieve significant interest savings.
"Another area of the business that is receiving management attention at present is the enhancement of our properties in order to extract maximum value from them.
"Given the high current level of property prices, we believe
it is better, in the short term, to redevelop, expand and upgrade existing properties than to acquire new ones, particularly as our portfolio has the potential for significant organic growth," he noted.
Looking ahead, van Zyl said the favourable trading conditions that had characterised the property market over the past year were likely to continue for the immediate future.
Barring an unexpected downturn, Vukile was well positioned to deliver real growth in distributions in the new
financial year, with planned conversions and expansions providing a solid foundation for an increase in rentals.