March 28 2025 16:00
SOUTH AFRICA
Welcome to the latest episode of the fast growing African real estate podcast, Another Brick in the Wall!
In this episode, Michael and Alistair kick the bricks with Daniel King, Managing Director and Head of Fixed Income at Merchant West Investments.
Sentiment towards the listed sector began to weaken in early 2018 as market participants became concerned about the overuse of debt, possible financial engineering, as well as corporate governance problems. The sector was hindered by expensive valuations, unsustainable earnings and deteriorating local conditions. The FTSE/JSE SA Listed Property Index lost 62.6% of its value between January 1 2018 and October 31 2020 with most of the drawdown occurring during the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
While the asset class has recovered somewhat from pandemic lows, industry flows have remained relatively muted. The question for investors is whether the sector still provides opportunity during times of uncertainty.
Listed property is nevertheless enjoying a decent start to 2025 and a number of listed funds have released strong financial results in the past few weeks. These results mostly include funds which have reported for the six months to end-December 2024. Recent interest rate cuts have helped real estate investment trusts (Reits) to perform well. There is growing confidence among executives, investors and fund managers.
You can hear the episode here: https://iono.fm/e/1540478 and on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/7b9rp2V0HQIntBMwQw1IRp.
Another Brick in the Wall is sponsored by Liberty Two Degrees and is produced by Fine Music Radio for Classic Business.
alistair@propertyflash.co.za