Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Emira's year-end results. It is for the period March 2025. Our agenda today is going to be an overview. We're gonna delve into the results and also give you some insight in the outlook. Maybe just before we start, I'm Ulana van Biljon. I'm the COO of Emira. Joining me, my colleague, Greg Booyens, the CFO. Maybe just to note that today we will not have any questions and answers, but you are more than welcome to either phone or to email either of us should there be any queries. Let's start with the overview. Financial year 2025 has really been an extremely busy year for everyone at Emira, and we delivered exceptional results. It was a year highlighted by the successful execution of a strategic repositioning, as well as achieving most of our KPIs.
There were two key strategic objectives. The first one was to create meaningful liquidity, and we definitely achieved that through a substantial number of disposals through the year. It transformed our local portfolio, as you can understand: ZAR 2.4 billion worth, 27 commercial properties; ZAR 362 million disposing of 427 residential units. Further to that, ZAR 628 million was under contract at the end of March, all of which has subsequently transferred. Now pleasingly, most of our sale prices that we achieved was similar to our book value. That gives us comfort in our valuation process. Understandably, the result of all the disposals make it very difficult to explain the variances year-on-year, and that is both operational and financially.
Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us this morning. The second key strategic priority for 2025 was the investment into the DL Invest Group in Poland. This was a significant step for Emira. It is somewhat of a complex transaction, so let's just quickly spend some time recapping on the details of that. We took a 45% stake in DL through the subscription of new equity at a total cost of EUR 100 million. Importantly, this was new capital that was raised by DL. We didn't acquire our shares from exiting shareholders, and the funds will be used by DL to develop out their pipeline and as well as to support new acquisitions. Our investment delivers us a 7.2% annual income return that escalates annually by CPI, floored at 2%, capped at 4%.
It's structured as a preferred investment. We receive our income in the form of interest, and essentially, we have a first right to DL Invest's net income. Now, we acquired our shares at a discount to the net asset value. We paid EUR 100 million for day one NAV of EUR 173 million. Now, it is an unlisted investment. There's a controlling shareholder. It was important for us to include a liquidity event, which we did in the form of a redemption right. And what that means is, at the end of year five, either party can trigger a sale or buyout at a price that's equal to that day one NAV of EUR 173 million. That escalates annually by CPI. That's capped at 4% CPI, floored at 2%.
What that means is that our investment will grow to a minimum value of around EUR 190 million by the end of year five. Not only have we secured a strong income yield, we've got exit optionality, plus we've got a minimum capitall return locked in at the end of year five, and that gives us an overall euro IRR of 21%.
As you can see, these two key strategic objectives have had a significant impact on Emira. We successfully transformed the balance sheet, and the disposals have unlocked meaningful liquidity, and that's even after the investment in Poland. Greg will give us a little bit more info on that a bit later.
Okay. As Ulana said right up front, it's been a successful year, and we've achieved the majority of our objectives. Our key metrics at the end of March are as follows. Firstly, distributable income per share up by 4.9% to ZAR 1.2489. Our NAV closed at ZAR 20.67, up almost 21%.
Our vacancies for SA Direct here in South Africa, that's a combination between commercial and residential, a very good result of 5.8%. We retained over 78% of the leases that expired over the period and the total disposals, ZAR 2.8 billion.
From a debt perspective, both our LTV and ICR have improved, closing at 36.3% and 2.5x cover respectively. We've declared a final dividend of ZAR 61.5 cents per share, and that takes the full year dividends for the year up to ZAR 123.89 cents. Okay, let's get into the detail. We're going to track the results by the different business units here on the summarized distribution statement. As I've just mentioned, full year dividend, sorry, our final dividend took the full year dividend up to ZAR 123.89 cents. That's a year-on-year increase of 5.9%. Starting with the commercial portfolio, net property income has declined to ZAR 753.4 million.
That's been driven by the disposals and the income that's been lost as a result. When you look at it on a like-for-like basis, and you factor in only the remaining 42 properties, net property income increased by almost 2%, and that's been driven by, firstly, letting activity. Then also we've seen a reduction in expenses, and that's in particular driven by the reduction that we've seen in load shedding in the last 12 months.
Pleasingly, the operating environment and business confidence in South Africa definitely improved over the past year, and this was mainly due to the national election results in 2024 and GNU being formed. Also, a more stable electricity supply, lower inflation, lower fuel cost and lower interest cost. There are still concerns. We still see low economic growth, and we are very worried about the ongoing worsening of municipal infrastructure and services. The Emira team, our hands-on approach and doing the basics well again resulted in very solid results for this financial year, and this is despite the impact of disposals, because most of those disposals were fully occupied. 42 properties valued at ZAR 8 billion, urban retail being the biggest, calculated by value of 56%.
Vacancies did increase to 6.4%, and this was mainly due to the industrial vacancies, and I'll give you a little bit more info on that later. Let me unpack the different sectors. Firstly, office sector remains challenging and under pressure, and this is mainly due to the lower economic growth. We're still seeing some oversupply of vacant space and the rental growth very limited. Our vacancies improved year-on-year, now down to 8.6%. Once again, we outperformed SAPOA vacancies, which is now at 13.6%. Industrial performance is still decent, and we still find a lot of demand for mini and midi units. As I alluded to earlier, vacancies increased to 7.9%. The reason for this is that RTT did not renew on their total space.
This renewal was already concluded in January 2024. It was at the time when RTT went through restructuring and relooked at their operations. If we excluded that vacancy, it would have been only 0.5%. Now, I'm pleased to inform you that after the reporting period, and due to the positive result of their restructuring as well as concluding new business opportunities and the space were not let, they've requested to take the space back after the period, as I say, and sign a new five-year lease. Now, the retail environment is still. We can see there's gradual improvement and momentum. It is still under pressure, as you're all aware. High unemployment, also tight consumer disposable income. The feedback from our retailers over the year was that they had logistics and supply chain disruptions, which also impacted the product lines.
Minor increase in vacancy at 4.2%, and this was mainly due to the disposals. Tenant retention, I mentioned earlier, just over 78%, RTT being the biggest renewal. Weighted average rent reversions worsened to a negative 5.6%, but it did improve compared to the past six months. The biggest reason, the impact of the RTT renewal. Again, if we exclude that, it would have been a negative 3.9%. We are, however, seeing some improvement and flat reversions. Now, for us, our focus is to retain our existing tenants, and we know that it comes at negative rent reversions. As you all know, to re-let vacant space is always at a higher cost. Now, our opinion is that negative reversions will remain.
If you just compare annual escalations in our portfolio, an average of 6.5%, that's not in line with economic or rental growth. WALE improved slightly to two point eight years, and our lease expiry profile spread is listed on the slide. Let me touch on our environmental initiatives. Firstly, we added five new PV farms, the total capacity of 1.5 MW peak. We also completed a groundwater harvesting project here at Knightsbridge of 140 kL. We still embrace biodiversity. As some of you know, climate and biodiversity crises are deeply interconnected, and it's driven largely by us, human activities. We at Emira will continue to identify and implement initiatives that integrate biodiversity into our sites as we support the ecosystem.
Thanks, Ulana. That all translates onto the balance sheet to a value of ZAR 8.1 billion. Now 16% down year-on-year. If you adjust for the disposals as well as the CapEx that we spent during the year, then there's been real growth of about 5.7%. Now, the full portfolio was externally valued at the end of March, and as I've said, we've seen some positive growth coming through. The metrics across all three sectors have improved. That's really driven by sentiment here locally in South Africa having improved following the elections, the establishment of the Government of National Unity. We've got interest rates that have decreased and hopefully are going down further.
also very importantly, it's the reduction of load shedding and the impact of that on businesses and the ability to start signing higher rentals. Moving on to the residential portfolio. Our net property income down 6.2% to ZAR 165 million. Now, again, it's the disposals that are causing this negative variances, the units that have been disposed year on year. When you look at it on a like for like basis, we call it our stabilized portfolio, where units are not currently being disposed. There's been growth of about 0.6%. It has been limited due to rising municipal costs on the residential side.
Our residential portfolio consists of 21 properties valued at ZAR 1.9 billion. The number of units reduced to just over 3,300. Vacancy is a very good number, improved to 3.4%, outperforming Rode of 6%. Average rent very similar to that of a year ago. Maybe just to highlight our portfolio focus on providing housing to the affordable residential market. It's value-oriented suburban units. It's mostly in Gauteng, and we are concerned about the municipal escalation and the changes of policy reviews in COJ because it does impact our cost to income ratio. Rental demand is expected to remain stable.
Okay, onto the balance sheet. The resi portfolio down at ZAR 1.9 billion. Now again, that's that negative variance is driven by the fact that a substantial number of units have been sold and have moved out YoY. We did revalue the remaining portfolio, all were done externally. YoY there's been flat growth that's come through. Moving on to our indirect investments into property. Firstly, our investments in the U.S., they continue to perform well and they've delivered income of ZAR 226 million for the year, up by 10.7%. Now, that's been driven by both some underlying rental growth coming in from the U.S. in the underlying leases, the dollar leases.
We've also got the benefit of our currency hedges when converting that into rand that have lifted that income. Now, we did dispose of one of our investments, our first investment, during the year. We sold our San Crossings shopping center. It was sold at the end of the Q3 . Effectively we're missing one quarter of income. It's a smaller asset, so it's had little impact to our full year earnings.
We still co-invested with the Rainier Companies. We're investing in open air grocery anchored shopping centers, 11, as Greg mentioned, across eight states. It was valued independently, just over $670 million. The impact of the new tariffs is still uncertain and Rainier view is that businesses are definitely adopting a more cautious approach. Rainier has also not seen an impact on the performance of our portfolio or even our retailers, and they say consumer spending continues to be stable. The results, as expected, vacancies 4.6%, an increase. Just to remind you, the main reason for the increase, Conn's liquidated last year. We've got one vacancy left at Wheatland of over 40,000 sq ft.
After reporting period, very pleased to inform you that a lease has now been signed with EōS Fitness. Party City also liquidated through the year. Our exposure was three sites, two of them already relet, and only one left at Belden of about 14,000 sq ft. Very good result, tenant retention over 88%. Lease expiry profile, very impressive, year 5+ 50, 42% and the WAL of four point two years.
On the balance sheet, the U.S. portfolio is valued at ZAR 2.66 billion. Now all the remaining eleven properties in the U.S. were externally valued and there was some growth that came through about 1.5% year-on-year. That's been offset by the fact that San Crossings has now moved out, and then the rand was also stronger against the dollar this March versus a year ago. Now, just to highlight here that you'll note in our financial statements that we've recognized a deferred tax liability in respect of CGT on our U.S. investments. It's a total liability that's been recognized of about ZAR 160 million. That has resulted in a restatement to our prior periods.
This followed the sale of San Crossings, where we obtained updated advice on the tax consequences and the impact that's flowed from that has then been applied to the remaining 11 investments. That had no impact onto our distribution calculation.
I think it's important that we just remind you who DL Invest is. The group is one of the most dynamically growing developers and investors in Poland. They've been operating for nearly 18 years. Their group and their strategy is not to carry out any speculative developments. Their business model is based on an internal management and all their projects they also manage internally. Their focus is on warehouse and logistics facilities, although they also have mixed-use properties and some retail parks. At the moment, they've got a meaningful pipeline which is being considered. I'm sure that you will agree with us that we've invested in a proper business.
As I mentioned right up front, we invested EUR 100 million into DL Invest. It was done in two tranches. The first tranche, if you recall, was August last year, and then the second tranche in March this year. From a distributable income perspective, we've recognized ZAR 48 million of income, which is our preferred return from the date of each of those tranches that was made. On the balance sheet, our investment is classified as a financial asset that's carried at fair value and has been calculated at ZAR 3.4 billion. Now, that's determined by present valuing or discounting, should I say, the future cash flows, the contractual cash flows, including the capital value at the end, back to their present value using an appropriate discount rate.
Now, we do test this value against our actual percentage interest in DL's net equity, and I can confirm our value recognized here is lower than that.
Looking at the key metrics, DL Invest has 39 properties. When it's calculated by GLA, the logistics sector being the biggest at 79%, calculated by value, 67%. Vacancies at 3.1%. They have just less than 400 tenants. I've listed all the largest tenants on the slide again, with Inditex still being the biggest. WALE of five point five years, another impressive lease expiry profile. Just to inform you, they acquired two new properties in December. They classified as developments under construction. I visited both of the properties last year, November. The first one is DL Prime in Katowice. It is a mixed-use building that will focus on hotel, services, retail, and a little bit of offices as well.
Very pleased to confirm that DL Invest team is busy finalizing a lease with Crowne Plaza of 10,700 sq m. DL Invest Park in Bielsko-Biała is a logistics park. I must say, it's huge. It's over 260,000 sq m. They're also already busy with expanding some of the existing tenants and also concluding leases for the vacant space.
Okay, moving on to our head office items. These are our fund level expenses, admin costs, as well as our staff costs. Year on year, these are down, and that's really been driven by the efficiencies that have been achieved on the takeover and delisting of Transcend, which happened in the H2 of last year, and we now receive the full benefit of that. Moving on to our funding, net finance costs have improved to ZAR 479 million. That's 12% down. Average debt levels in the year have been lower as a result of the number of asset disposals that have been concluded. Debt did increase following the investment into DL in Poland, but that's been funded with euro-denominated debt, which has lowered our overall cost of funding. Interest cover ratio up nicely.
I mentioned it earlier, 2.5x cover, so comfortably within our 2x covenant. On the balance sheet, interest-bearing debt down now at ZAR 6.2 billion. I've mentioned the significant amount of disposals that have been concluded during the year. All those proceeds have effectively been deployed into debt, and then a portion has been reinvested into DL in Poland by drawing down on new debt. We've got 87% of our interest rate exposure that has been hedged for an average duration of two point three years. Then following the conclusion of the disposals and the reinvestment into Poland, our LTV is now right down at 36.3%, which is the lowest level it's been since 2018, 2019. From a debt expiry perspective, it's been a busy 12 months.
We've concluded ZAR 2.4 billion in new debt that's been raised, and that's been used to increase capacity as well as to refinance any debt that was maturing during the period. We permanently settled ZAR 1.2 billion worth of debt using the disposal proceeds that came through. All of that has meant that our average duration to expiry has improved to two point seven years. Now, next 12 months, we've got ZAR 1.3 billion of debt that's coming up for maturity. About ZAR 300 million of that has already been settled using disposal proceeds that have come in from properties that transferred subsequent to year-end. Liquidity position, very healthy at the moment. We've got undrawn committed debt facilities of just over ZAR 1 billion.
Free cash at the end of March was ZAR 300 million, and that's since been increased subsequent to year-end by another ZAR 320 million through the disposal proceeds that have come in net of what had to settle debt. Just to finish up on the financials, let's take a look at our NAV bridge. I think this neatly summarizes the key movements that we've seen on the balance sheet and the real themes for our results. We started off at ZAR 17.33 NAV. This was pre restatement. We close at ZAR 20.67. The key movements on that are firstly, from a positive side, we've got growth that's come through on our local commercial portfolio. There's the uplift that we received on the investment into DL Invest in Poland.
On the negative side, we've got the stronger rand's impact on our U.S. investments. Lastly, there's the deferred tax that we've had to recognize on our balance sheet in respect of the unrealized gains on the remaining 11 properties in the U.S.
To conclude, let me give you some insight on our outlook. I think very importantly is to know that the Emira team will still focus on delivering sustained growth and long-term value for shareholders. We will continue, as in the past, to execute a disciplined capital recycling strategy. Strategically, we will still redeploy the proceeds into higher yielding value accretive opportunities. Now I know you always want to know what our target is, and just know that we're not giving you any guidance, but the exact target for DPS for financial year 2026 is ZAR 1.2778. To end, you would have seen in our results since announcement that Emira has announced the appointment of a new CEO, James Day, and we welcome James to be part of our Emira team, and we're looking forward to work with him.
James will start on the 1 July, and I'm sure at the appropriate time, he will engage with our stakeholders. That concludes our presentation, and we really wanna thank you for attending today.
Thanks, everyone.