May 27 2026 13:15
Last week Vukile Property Fund has raised R2.8bn from the general market through an accelerated bookbuild on the JSE to help fund its entry into the Italian retail property market.
Vukile is a retail focused real estate investment trust (Reit) with assets in South Africa, Spain and Portugal through its subsidiary Castellana. The group has been fairly mum about which markets it would enter next, if any, but it has announced now that it wants intends to acquire three shopping centres with a gross asset value of €115m(R2.2bn).
The R2.8bn was raised through the issue of 123-million new ordinary shares. The bookbuild shares were placed at a price of R22,60 a share, representing a 4.32% and 4.43% discount to the pre-launch Vukile closing share price, and the 10-day volume-weighted average price, respectively, on May 19 2026.
Vukile’s annual revenue is roughly split 60% from offshore properties and 40% from South African properties. CEO Laurence Rapp said the company has done well to identify mispriced assets and to capitalising on opportunities.
In addition to the assets in Italy, the balance of the proceeds would “provide the group with the optionality and financial flexibility required to continually evaluate value-enhancing opportunities and fund potential further pipeline in the near term”. The equity raise was offered to qualifying investors.
Vukile’s share price fell 2.37% to R23,08 on the JSE on Wednesday afternoon following the announcmeent of the bookbuild’s result, and closed 20% higher than it was 12 months ago. The share price is down 5.44% year-to-date, trading at R23.39 by 13:30 on May 27 2026. Its market capitalisation is R32.2bn making it the third largest locally based Reit in SA, behind Redefine Properties and Growthpoint Properties.
alistair@propertyflash.co.za
