The London Stock Exchange (LSE) and Stock Exchange of Mauritius (SEM) listed Grit Real Estate Income Group, a pan-African real estate company that owns and manages a group of properties across eight countries, is aiming to own $5bn (R91bn) worth of assets by 2027.
Grit’s CEO Bronwyn Knight said on Tuesday that her company had grown steadily since its formation in 2012. It was now a reliable performer for its shareholders and was the largest listed Africa focused property fund in the world. Knight spoke to Property Flash following the release of financial results for the year to end-June 2022.
“We have proved our doubters wrong time and time again. It took a while for us to get Grit to where it is today with a strong portfolio of assets. We are now in a position where we can sell secondary properties and focus on owning higher quality assets. This can be achieved with the help of our development subsidiary, Gateway Real Estate Africa (Grea) which is creating top quality specialised assets such as corporate accommodation,” said Knight.
“I think $5bn in assets would be a sweet spot for us to reach as a company especially in the eyes of our London investors. Along with this, we are trying to get more liquidity in our shares and are hoping to expand our shareholder base,” she said.
Grit was focused on investing in and actively managing a diversified portfolio of assets underpinned by predominantly US dollar and Euro denominated long-term leases with high-quality multi-national tenants.
“Grit has weathered the challenges over the Covid period and, despite recent global uncertainty, is producing a robust underlying portfolio performance supported by our strong family of partnerships across the African continent,” Knight said.
During the reporting period, net operating Income from properties increased 3.5% , with 92.8% of the value of its contracted revenue collected in the year.
Management achieved a higher occupancy rate of 95.3% compared with 94.7% in the 2021 financial year, predominantly because of new leases concluded in the corporate offices and retail portfolios.
The retail sector across Africa appeared to have stabilised and when combined with acquisitions and investments in the period, the reported value of investment properties of Grit had increased 6.9% in the financial year to US$856.7m (R15.6bn).