Good day. Welcome to Emira Property Fund Limited's interim results presentation for the six-month period ended 30 September 2025. I'm James Day, and I'm the Chief Executive Officer of Emira. I started as CEO on 1 July 2025, and look forward to taking you through my first results presentation. I'm joined by our long-serving COO, Ulana van Biljon , as well as our CFO, Greg Boyens. We will start with an overview of the six-month period, followed by a more in-depth look at our direct investments, our indirect investments, our corporate costs, our funding and financing, as well as a look at the key drivers of our net asset value per share for the period. We will then have a brief outlook for FY 2026, and finally, we'll close with some questions. Emira's delivered stable results for an interim period marked by heightened macroeconomic uncertainty.
Key amongst that was the U.S. tariffs. Operational performance has remained resilient, with both encouraging fundamentals at a property level as well as effective and proactive asset management strategies from the Emira team. Importantly, the period also saw a successful executive leadership transition. The two key strategic objectives of management remain unchanged. To create meaningful liquidity and to recycle capital realized into higher yielding or value accretive opportunities. I'd wanted to give some high-level drivers for the period that kind of frame the six-month results, and I think it is important to highlight that this is the first period with the full impact of a DL Invest investment in Emira's numbers. Previously, it was either a portion of the investment or it was the investment for a portion of the period. We've also executed on share buybacks that were yield accretive.
We've built an initial acquisition of SA Corporate Real Estate shares, which we'll unpack later. I think also on our sales strategy, there's been a meaningful shift towards the disposal of some U.S. assets. Looking at the key metrics for the six-month period, distributable income per share has increased by 1.9% to ZAR 0.6483. Our net asset value has increased by ZAR 0.29 to ZAR 20.96 over the six months. Vacancies on our commercial portfolio have decreased to 3.8%. Vacancies in our residential stabilized portfolio remain constant, around 2%. Tenant retention is higher at 87%. All of these metrics point to a portfolio that is well-managed and stable. On the disposal front, we managed to execute on the disposal of local commercial and residential properties for a value of ZAR 746 million.
I think it's important to note, and also the sale of one of our U.S. retail centers for $14.5 million. LTV has benefited from those proceeds, reducing to 35.6%, as has our ICR, which as a result of lower debt costs, has increased to 2.7 times. Finally, our dividend per share for the interim period is ZAR 0.644, which is 3.2% increase on the prior comparative period. I'm now gonna hand over to Greg and Alana, who are going to take us through a more in-depth look at the portfolio results for the period.
Okay. Thanks, James. Good morning, everyone. Okay, we're going to track the results by the different business units listed here on this summarized version of the distribution statement. As James has just highlighted, we've declared a interim dividend of ZAR 0.644, just over 3% higher than the September 2024 dividend. Now, also just to note here, our number of shares in issue has come down. We bought back and canceled just over 15 million shares during this six-month period, and that's been both positive to our dividend per share as well as to our net asset value per share. Okay, let's get into the detail. Firstly, on the commercial portfolio, net property income reduced down to ZAR 323.2 million. Now, that's due to income that we've lost from sales.
We've sold 28 properties since the start of the comparative period. If we look at it on a like-for-like basis, net property income has been flat the six-month period compared to the prior period, and that's mainly due to the vacancy that arose from RTT vacating a portion of their space at the RTT Apex Park premises, and we've lost that income for this six-month period. As we've previously shared, that has subsequently been reoccupied by RTT and rentals have commenced in this next six-month period.
Thank you, Greg. Good morning, everyone. Before I share with you our commercial results, I would like to provide you some context in how we operated over the past few months. Firstly, the South African commercial market and its underlying fundamentals really shown some resilience recently, and this is despite quite a few challenges. I mean, firstly, consistent low economic growth. Secondly, unfortunately, we've seen some episodes of political turbulence, and then the ongoing decline of municipal infrastructure. On a positive note, the resilience has been supported by improvement in electricity supply, secondly, a more stable rate environment, and then also moderating inflation. We're pleased that our results are in line with our expectations, reflecting the strength of our strategy. Our disciplined focus on the underlying fundamentals with a hands-on approach delivers us operational excellence and consistency. Emira has 41 properties valued at ZAR 8.1 billion.
We only transferred one industrial property in Pretoria, HBP Industrial Units, through the period. If we look at the portfolio by value, calculated, firstly, the largest is still urban retail and accounting for 57% of the portfolio. Very pleased with the vacancies that reduced from 6.4% down to 3.8%, and this is largely due to the big let to RTT of nearly 16,000 sq m. Let me unpack the different sectors. Firstly, the office sector market conditions remain challenging, but we are seeing that sentiment is on the rise, and there is a gradual uptick in leasing activity. We also see that there's increasing demand for premium well-positioned spaces. This is driven by hybrid models as well as corporates that is focusing on either consolidation or rightsizing. Our vacancies improved to 8%.
Once again, the Emira team outperformed SAPOA average, which is now at 13.1%. Industrial sectors remain strong. E-commerce and logistics continue to drive the demand for warehouses as well as distribution centers, and this is especially near major logistic routes. The fundamentals are strong, low vacancies and a stable rental growth. We improved our vacancies from 7.9% six months ago to 0.4%. This is similar levels that you have seen the Emira team achieved over the past few years. We also outperformed the market, which is at 3.8%. We've got some small vacancies at only three of our 19 industrial properties. If I go to the retail sector, it's definitely on a recovery path. It is also supported by improved trading densities and normalized vacancies.
Unfortunately, consumer remains under pressure because of high living costs, and this could dampen maybe retail and discretionary spend over the short term. However, the demand for value, as well as convenience, continue to support grocery-anchored and convenience-focused retail. Our retail vacancy did increase slightly to 4.8%, but once again, outperforming the market of 5.1%. Tenant retention, as I've said many times, remain our biggest focus and calculated by gross rental, nearly 87%, but also on GLA over 88%. The largest renewals by lease value that was concluded, firstly, SALGA at MCP renewed for half of their space, and then the main RTT lease extended their lease for another 10 months. The average rent reversions improved to -4.7%. We are seeing some improvement and even some positive reversions.
However, I must caution that the pressure on positive reversions will continue. The reason for this is due to our contractual escalations, and in Emira's case, 6.4%, and I'm sure you will agree that is not in line with economic or market rental growth. Our WALE is at 2.7 years, and we're very satisfied with the spread of our lease expiry profile, maybe just highlighting year four and beyond of nearly 44%. Let me touch on some of our environmental initiatives. We are busy and will conclude this financial year another eight PV projects, which will include a combined capacity of another 1 MW peak. A very important achievement is that we achieve Net Zero Carbon Certification here at Knightsbridge Block A.
Water, we continue monitoring and tracking our water because it's very important that we know where there might be some leaks so that we can address them. Also, for this financial year, we will finalize another groundwater harvesting project by the year-end. Then biodiversity, important for us, as you know. This year we've already implemented nature-based solution for pest control. 14 owl boxes and 7 bat boxes across 7 of our properties. Now, you might wonder why. Well, firstly, it assists us to manage rodent and insect population on a natural basis.
Maybe some of you don't know, but firstly, just on barn owls, they consume hundreds of rodents in their breeding season. As you know, just for them being present, they deter some of the pests. Bats, on the other hand, consume their body weight in flying insects on a nightly basis. They rely also on their biosonar for detection and in navigation.
Okay. On the balance sheet, that all translates into a value of just under ZAR 8.2 billion for the commercial portfolio, 0.5% up since March. If you factor in the disposal that took place in the six months together with the CapEx that we've spent, up by 0.8%. Now, we did have the full remaining portfolio externally valued. While sentiment has improved in the local commercial property market, we're yet to see a big shift in the underlying rentals, escalations, and cap rates that really drive valuation growth. Okay, moving on to the residential portfolio, which has delivered net property income of just under ZAR 58 million, down 34.6%. Again, that's driven all by disposals. If you look at it on a like-for-like basis, net property income up by around 2%.
There's still strong demand for rental housing. There are some barriers and the reason for homeowners and some of the reasons, firstly, high deposit requirements. Secondly, there could be elevated monthly repayments. There's also the risk of interest hikes, and then the broader economic uncertainty. We're also seeing that municipalities in our larger metros are introducing some fixed charges. Now, that could be an issue to us because we're not sure what we can recover from our tenants because we also do rental escalations. Lifestyle incentives are definitely becoming increasingly common, which assists developers and also landlords to attract and to retain some of the existing tenants. Some of the things that are implemented is free fiber, shared gyms, and well-equipped play areas.
Our residential portfolio consists of 15 properties valued at ZAR 1.4 billion. 8 of the 15 is held for sale. The average value per unit is around about ZAR 563,000. At the half year, we've reduced our number of units to 2,203. Vacancies for the held portfolio is solid 1.7%, and then the average rental per unit just less than ZAR 6,000.
Okay. On the balance sheet, the residential portfolio is down to ZAR 1.24 billion, down 35%. That's due to the ZAR 685 million worth of units that transferred out over this six-month period. The balance of the portfolio was also externally valued. Much like the commercial portfolio, we've seen marginal growth come through over the six-month period. Now, of the ZAR 1.24 billion, we've got ZAR 155 million worth of units that are currently under contract for sale, and those are expected to transfer over the next couple of months.
Adding to that, Greg, I think just to clarify on the portfolio disposals, we've been extremely pleased that we managed to sell all of the commercial properties which were held for sale at 31 March 2025, as well as materially all of the residential portfolio properties that were held for sale, with the exception of a number of individual units that are unconditional within our trickle sales strategy. That, coupled with the ZAR 251 million of commercial portfolio sales and ZAR 155 million of residential portfolio sales, which are held for sale at period end, means that this period is once again characterized by meaningful disposals of local assets in line with our capital realization strategy.
Okay. Let's move now onto our investments. First up, we've got our investment in SA Corporate, which is a new addition for us. We acquired a 6.4% equity interest during the six-month period through a series of on-market trades, and we've recognized ZAR 13 million in our distributable income, which is a proportion of the dividend that we've received or that we're due to receive based on the date that each batch of shares was acquired. On the balance sheet, the investment is valued at ZAR 524 million, which is based on the closing market price of SA Corporate. You can see a meaningful investment now for Emira.
Emira has built up this position in SA Corporate, which is also a JSE listed REIT. As of 30 September, as Greg mentioned, we have 6.4%. Subsequent to the reporting period, we were able to acquire an additional 2.3% of the issued equity, meaning that as of today, our holding is 8.7% in SAC. SAC provides Emira with access to a defensive portfolio of primarily retail and residential South African assets. We were presented with a opportunity in the market in April and May 2025 to build up an initial stake at attractive prices, and from that base investment, have managed to build up to our current holding of 8.7%. This has allowed Emira to deploy excess capital into undervalued assets and, at the same time, generate tax-efficient returns for the fund.
Okay, let's move on to our U.S. investments, which have delivered net property income or net income, should I say, of just under ZAR 98 million, down 12.4%. Again, this has been impacted by disposals. If you recall, we sold San Antonio Crossing in December of 2024, so that income has been lost in the six-month period. Then we also sold UTC in August of this year, so there's only a portion of that income that has been included. On top of that, our income has been impacted by the stronger rand, reducing the value of the unhedged portion of our dollar income.
The impact of the tariff increases in the U.S. remains uncertain, but there are some initial indicators that suggest there could be possible pressure on holiday order for volumes. Market reports, they are supported by Rode, continue to reflect on the resilience of the retail market because retailers are still actively pursuing new location opportunities. We own 10 grocery anchored, dominant value-oriented power centers with our partner, Rode.
The value $606 million. A very good improvement in the vacancy is now at 2.8%, and this is due to a lot of new lets that were done during this period. The biggest being EoS Fitness at Wheatland. Tenant retention, a solid result of nearly 98%, although in a small sample, still very good. The lease expiry profile, a very good spread, and I must highlight year five and beyond, which is nearly 55%. The WALE increased to 4.6 years.
Okay. Again, looking at the balance sheet, on those U.S. investments, the value of that portfolio now down to ZAR 2.24 billion, 16% down. That's really just due to mostly UTC transferring out during the period. The stronger rand has also had a big impact here, closing at 17.28 rand to the dollar, end of September, which was over a rand weaker than it, where it was just six months ago in March. Now, of the ZAR 2.24 billion, we've got two assets valued at about ZAR 540 million, which are currently under contract for sale and again, we're expecting those to transfer in the next couple of months.
Thanks, Greg. I think to elaborate on the U.S., sales that have come through this period, Emira has been working closely with our partners in the U.S., Rainier, to understand where we can make sense of exits on certain assets within the portfolio. The U.S. power center retail portfolio of Emira is mature, and stable, and there are limited asset management opportunities to drive meaningful capital upside in the future. As a result, we've managed to dispose of now four assets, one San Antonio Crossing in the prior period, UTC in the current period, and both Moore Plaza and Dawson's Marketplace, which are held for sale. These sales have been achieved at a slight premium to book value, which has been a fantastic opportunity for Emira to continue its strategy of realizing value through sales.
Okay, let's move on to our investment in DL Invest. That's the Polish property group in which we have a 45% stake, and we've recognized just under ZAR 75 million of income in this six-month period, and that represents the preferred return that we receive from DL Invest, substantially higher than the previous period. If you recall, we only made the investment initially at the back end of that prior period, and at that stage only included tranche one.
On the balance sheet, the investment is classified as a financial asset. We carry it at fair value, and that has been calculated at EUR 173.9 million at the thirtieth of September. ZAR 3.5 billion, just under 4% increase. A lot of that increase has been driven by the rand weakening against the euro in the six-month period, so opposite from the rand versus the dollar.
Let's just revisit the DL strategy. Very importantly, they don't do any speculative developments. They make sure that they've got pre-let projects. Secondly, every project that they manage is with a long-term ownership approach, and they've got a strong internal and integrated management structure, which ensures control and operational efficiency. DL consists of 39 operating properties. The spread is between logistics, retail, as well as mixed use, and calculated by GLA, logistics being the biggest sector at 79% and calculated by value at 67%. Vacancies, a low 3%, and their largest tenant remains Inditex that occupies nearly 170,000 sq m. Their WALE, 5.2 years. Again, a very good expiry profile with year five and beyond at nearly 64%.
Yes, Ulana van Biljon. The DL portfolio has strong fundamentals within it, and we actually have come up now for the one-year anniversary of Emira Property Fund's strategic investment into the DL Invest Group. All the execs here were recently in Poland in September and October, visiting with the team that side and touring to see various assets across Poland. We remain extremely impressed with the high caliber of the DL team and their dedication to the success of the DL Group. Just to talk to the expansion program in that business, they've got an extremely strong pipeline with four income-generating logistics assets, as well as four logistics properties under development. All eight of these properties are expected to come into the stabilization phase in 2026.
I think it's also great to mention that they successfully issued a EUR 350 million euro bond, which has been listed on the Luxembourg Stock Exchange. This is a fantastic transaction that lends even further credibility to the DL Invest Group and also diversifies their funding sources, giving them access to capital which can help support their expansion program.
Okay, now let's take a look at our corporate and funding sections. Firstly, at a head office level, admin costs up marginally by just 1%. Then from a funding perspective, net finance costs down 23% to ZAR 204.9 million. Now, our debt levels have been lower on average this period compared to the prior period. We've spoken about the 28 disposals that have taken place since then. But then we've also effectively replaced a portion of our rand debt from the previous period with euro-denominated debt to back up our investment into DL Invest in Poland and we've got a full six months of that impact coming through. Pleasingly, ICR improved further to 2.7 times cover.
On the balance sheet, our borrowings, so debt down to ZAR 5.9 billion, that's a result of the disposals that took place during the six-month period, net of the amounts reinvested into SA Corporate and then into our share buyback program. 82% of our interest rate exposure is fixed and then in line with the lower debt levels, our LTV has also improved further to 35.6%. If we take a look at our debt expiry profile, it's been a busy first six-month period. We've raised ZAR 2.1 billion in new debt, and that's been used to refinance maturing facilities, as well as just to create a bit of additional capacity.
We've used disposal proceeds to permanently settle about ZAR 350 million worth of debt, and altogether, that's meant our average duration to expire is improved to 2.8 years. We've got ZAR 450 million coming up over the next six months to our year-end. The bulk of that we are currently busy with at the moment. Liquidity still is looking very strong. We've got undrawn debt, committed debt facilities of ZAR 1.1 billion on hand, and then also free cash of ZAR 130 million, and that will be boosted once the disposal proceeds that we've mentioned from the U.S. residential and commercial that are due to come in in the next few months.
Now, just to wrap it up on the financials, I'd like to take you through our NAV bridge, which I think is a very good summary of the key movements that we've seen on the balance sheet. We started with a net asset value per share of ZAR 20.67 in March. We've got, firstly, the positive impact coming through from our investment into DL Invest in Poland. There was a little bit of underlying value growth that came through in euro terms, but then we had the impact of the weaker rand against the euro. The share buybacks were positive. We bought shares at a substantial discount to the net asset value. A bit of growth that came through on our commercial and residential portfolios.
On the negative side, there's the stronger rand's impact on our U.S. investments that was net of the currency hedges that we have in place there. Some disposal costs on the assets that were sold, as well as those that are held for sale. Lastly, with the lower interest rates, it means that some of our fixed rate interest rate contracts have moved out of the money. All of that has meant that we've had a 1.4% increase in our net asset value per share, closing at ZAR 20.96 at the end of September.
Right. Moving on to some outlook for the rest of the period. At previous renewal results announcement, we had mentioned that we would focus on delivering sustained growth and long-term value for shareholders, and this remains part of management's core focus. We said that we will continue to execute a disciplined capital recycling strategy, and we managed to dispose of all of the held for sale assets from the prior period, successfully transferred during the current period. We said that we would strategically redeploy the proceeds into higher yielding or value accretive opportunities, and this has been done via Emira buybacks and acquisition of a stake in SA Corporate. The executive DPS target for FY 2026 was communicated as ZAR 1.2778, and the executive DPS target is unchanged.
Emira was to appoint a new CEO, and I was appointed and started on 1 July 2025. In looking towards the rest of 2026, I think that we could most succinctly summarize management's execution of our strategic objectives by saying that we're going to continue to seek to deploy recycled capital into meaningful value accretive opportunities in order to grow shareholder value. Thank you. I think that wraps up the presentation, and we're now gonna move over to a couple of questions which have been coming through online. So if you do have any questions, there's still a bit of time to share those with us. I'm looking here. This is always a question that comes up for you, Greg. Please, can you confirm what Emira's look-through LTV is?
Okay. We reported an actual LTV of 35.6%. If you run a look-through LTV and you proportionally consolidate our investments, that increases to around 55%. Those investments that I'm talking of is, firstly, DL Invest. Their LTV is running at about 51%, the last reported number to us. In the U.S., our assets there are running at about a 56% LTV. On SA Corporate, I think their LTV last reported was around 40%. Around 55% on a look-through basis.
Okay. Thanks, Greg. Number of questions here on the U.S. as expected. What is Emira's strategy with the U.S.? Is this a start of recycling out of all U.S. assets? We've got here: Is Emira looking to exit the U.S. altogether? I think I can take that one. No, I do not think that the sales that we've made indicate that we are rushing to the door to exit the U.S. The strategy to realize value in properties across the portfolio relates to all assets in the portfolio, not just local SA assets.
I think a number of the sales in the U.S. have actually been driven by our partners, Renier, where, as explained before, the assets are mature, there's limited asset management or value creation opportunities, and we're facing flattening IRRs and potentially debt rerating within those investments in the near future, due to long-term fixed term debt that was used to fund those investments at inception.
I also think, James, they, our partners are recycling their capital into more development opportunities, which don't necessarily suit us as a REIT.
That's correct, Greg. No, we're not going to just be exiting all of U.S. investments necessarily. We're considering where exits make sense for both us and our partners, and are happy to continue to hold U.S. assets to the extent that it makes sense for the fund. Another question here probably for Alana. You mentioned the office market and note that sentiment is improving. Would you say that we're out of the woods? I suppose that means that is the office sector improving substantially?
Well, unfortunately, no. I do think sentiment is better and as I said, there are definitely more activity. We still have a oversupply, and I think the market is adjusting to some of the repurposing of some of the office space, and there's definitely also less new developments. At the end, what we need is the economy to grow, and that will help businesses to grow and therefore, hopefully, offices will then be a little bit out of the woods.
Okay. I think there is one more question here regarding Poland. If you are so confident with the team and the assets being developed, why are you not investing in underlying assets, or why do you not take an equity stake in the business? I think, Greg, maybe you could just clarify the structure of our investment into DL.
We do have an equity stake in the business. We just we wanted some protection up front in terms of being a new partner, so we structured it on a preferred basis, but we have a 45% ordinary equity interest, but that's capped through the option agreements that we have above that. Certainly, there may be opportunities that present themselves in the future where we're able to participate on you know on a co-ownership in assets.
But at the moment, there's nothing just like that on the horizon. I think from an asset ownership perspective, we would always really want to back the on-the-ground guys in-country to be investing alongside us or us investing alongside them, which is what we currently have. By all means, if there's opportunities that present themselves in the future where we could co-invest on an asset-by-asset basis, if it made sense, well, then we'd certainly consider that.
Yeah. I think that's correct. All right. I think that's all we actually have time for today. Thank you for joining us. From Greg, Ulana, myself and the whole team at Emira, we'd like to say thank you very much.