Welcome everybody to our year-end results for the period to the 31st of March 2024. Joining me are my colleagues, Greg Booyens, our Chief Financial Officer, and Ulana van Biljon, our Chief Operating Officer. The agenda will be that I will share the overview. We will then take you through our business on a business unit basis through all the results, and then I'll end off with the outlook. Starting off then with the overview, I think it's important to dwell and spend a little bit of time on what our past successes have been so that you can see the pattern of how we run our business. Firstly, in regard to Enyuka, you'll recall it was a joint venture that we entered into with ONE back in 2016.
It was focused on the lower LSM and rural retail assets, and we grew that portfolio through to ZAR 1.7 billion, a total of 22 assets over that period. Our partners offered to buy us out, and in July 2023, we disposed of that and received ZAR 646.3 million. You can see our very attractive income yield that we earned on average over that period and the seven-year IRR. The point, important part is together with ONE, we delivered a better outcome than we could have by ourselves. There was The Bolton, and you'll remember that we converted this from an office building through to a residential building, and that was back in 2018.
We teamed up with the Feenstra Group, and we re-developed that and had a completed value of ZAR 210 million that yielded ZAR 16 million-ZAR 19 million per year of rental income. We decided to sectionalize it and sell it off, and at this point in time, we are 85% sold in regard to those individual sectional title units. The capital uplift has been from ZAR 210 million up to the ZAR 280 million value level, and we certainly feel that we would not have been able to do this by ourselves. We've delivered a very successful rental product, and we switched into, again, a very successful sectional title exit. You'll recall that we had our stake in GOZ in Australia.
We sold that out because we felt that was fully valued, and we didn't have any control on that, and that was between 2016 and 2019. We expanded on our offshore diversification. We wanted an exposure to a stronger economy. We wanted exposure to tenants that had a different profile to what we have here in South Africa, and we fortunately managed to find an undervalued asset subsector in the U.S., being the open-air, grocer-anchored, value-oriented power centers. We also found the right partners that were willing to put skin in the game. As you're aware, we've got 12 assets. That equity value is now sitting at $147 million. We've got great partners, and that constitutes 19% of our total asset base. We continue to assess all of our opportunities.
We certainly feel that we have been stronger together with Rainier. It's really been a great partnership with the right kind of Americans, and they've certainly delivered on what we had anticipated. There was Transcend. We invested into Transcend back in 2017 and 2018. We felt it was well managed by IHS with aspirations to expand. We took an initial 34.9% equity stake. We had plans to increase that business, but then the market changed, and we ended up making a general offer to shareholders back in 2022 that then took our 34.9% stake up to 68%. Last year, we did the scheme of arrangement. That's now been implemented, and we own 100% of Transcend, and we delisted that in November.
We continue to sectionalize the units and continued with the individual unit sales, but we can certainly share that Transcend is a fully consolidated, wholly owned subsidiary of Emira and is well integrated into Emira. This step into residential with IHS and the Transcend team has really paid off in terms of diversification, where our residential diversification is now sitting at 15.5% of our total assets. The other part too is in terms of the economics, we've certainly done well under that side. You would have seen the SENS announcements that we made in March and in April of this year, where we are creating meaningful liquidity through new sales, specifically Market Square down in Plettenberg Bay and the disposal of Makro at Crown Mines, together with the meaningful portfolio sale of 13 buildings through to Spear REIT down in the Western Cape.
All of these meaningful disposals have happened over the last seven years. We've done many more disposals over the last seven years, and I think you can see that over that period of time, we've been selling at or around our book values and often in excess of that, so that we can recycle those proceeds into profitable other ventures. The reason why I'm sharing those past successes with you is that they illustrate a pattern, and it's important for you to see a pattern of how we run our business so that you can create an expectation going forward. The results that we're sharing with you today reflect the 12-month period to the 31st of March 2024, and that compares against the nine-month period to March of 2023, and that's because of our financial year-end change.
As we had signaled at the time, we shared that we did not anticipate that there would be any income accrual coming from the Inani business. We've also disposed of the high-yielding Enyuka, so that's had an impact. We certainly are feeling the effects of higher interest rates on our debt levels, but ultimately, we've continued to exceed our executive KPI target that we set for ourselves for FY 2024, and you'll see that in these results.
What can you expect for the future? You can expect that the disposals that we've shared will transfer. That will create meaningful liquidity, and with that, you can expect to see further diversification with the proceeds. We always share this with you so that you are aware. Our executive KPI target for FY 2025 is expected to be marginally above that of what we've achieved for FY 2024. Moving on then to the key metrics, you'll see that our distributable income per share was ZAR 1.1903 for the full 12-month period. Our net asset value increased by 2.2% to the ZAR 17.33 level. The disposals that have transferred this year include the sale of Enyuka, the unit sales under both The Bolton and Transcend, and then the two industrial properties, One Monte- Carlo and Trellidor.
Collections remain strong at the 99.9% level. On the vacancy side, we've certainly improved on the Commercial portfolio to 4.1%, and under the residential side, still a very low 2.6% vacancy. Our tenant retention has been strong at 81%, and our interest cover ratio is now sitting at 2.3 x, which compares favorably against our banking covenant of 2 x. Loan-to-value ratio has improved to the 42.4% level. All of this resulting in a full year dividend per share of ZAR 1.1702 per share. That means the final dividend for the second six months is ZAR 0.5528 per share. Moving on to our distribution statement summary.
Good. Thanks, Geoff. Good morning, everyone. Okay, we're going to track the financials by different business units listed here on the summarized version of the distribution statement. Now, as Geoff has highlighted, we've declared a final dividend of ZAR 0.5528 per share, taking the full year dividend to ZAR 1.17 per share. Now, just to reiterate again, the periods are not comparable, and we're comparing a 12-month current year period versus a nine-month prior period. We won't focus too much on the variances that pop out. Firstly, on the Commercial portfolio, that's delivered net property income of ZAR 815 million, just below ZAR 815 million, and that accounts for the two properties that were sold during the year. Now, the portfolio has performed well during the period.
Rentals have improved due to letting that's taken place, but we've still got the persistent negative rent reversions, which are restricting any meaningful growth there. Property expenses continue to grow at a rate that seems to be higher than the actual market rental growth, which is affecting overall profitability. On the positive side, we've had lower load shedding this period, which has meant less diesel costs coming through.
Considering the tough operating conditions, the low business confidence, and of course, also the weak economic environment, we know that the Emira Commercial portfolio really has performed well over the past 12 months. We know that consumers remain under pressure, and we see that disposable income is mostly spent on essentials. On the Emira portfolio, our trading density growth over the 12 months was marginally flat, 1% increase, and that is in line with Stats SA's first quarter of 2024 compared to quarter 2023, where they decreased 8.1%. Now, this could be possibly seen as muted growth for 2024, but let's see what happens in the next three quarters. We're very pleased that the key metrics of the Commercial portfolio we did perform better year-on-year. How do we do this?
The Emira team is a hands-on approach, and we've done this for many years, and we focus on the basics. People might say, "Why the basics?" Because if you do the basics well, your portfolio will perform better. We also continue to achieve our purpose of being great in providing great real estate. Of course, that also relies on the performance of our property management teams, and it's important for us that they continue and perform, as we call it, The Emira Way, but with excellence. As Geoff mentioned earlier, we sold two industrial properties, One Monte- Carlo down in Durban and Trellidor in Cape Town. We now own 69 commercial properties in South Africa. Calculated by value, urban retail's still the highest and the biggest sector of 52%.
Extremely good result, 4.1% vacancies compared to 4.7%, and this was driven by the Office sector as well as the Industrial sector. Firstly, when we look at the Office sector, you'll see that our results again improved to 10.9%, and as we've been doing for many years, we again outperform the SAPOA's average, now at 14.7%. How did we do this? You will see I've listed on this slide the three biggest leases that we concluded, 1,200, 1,500, 1,500, and I'm sure you will agree in today's environment to conclude these three big leases, and of course there are others as well, is really a great achievement from our leasing team. The Office sector does remain under pressure because of the lower economic growth.
We do continue to see that there is continued flexible arrangements for people to work from home, but we're definitely seeing that working permanently from home is less. Businesses we see and definitely as well embrace to be at the office. In-person meetings, as an example, are seen to be more productive than Teams and Zoom calls. We also see that businesses are back in managing that culture and therefore also ensuring a collaborative environment. The Industrial sector, what a great result, 0.7% compared to a year ago of 2.1%. I've listed the three biggest leases that we also concluded, but maybe the biggest achievement is 28 of the 32 industrial properties were fully let at the end of March.
We did have a bit of a tick up on our urban retail vacancy, now 3.9%, really not a concern to us. The main reason for that is Buco at Wonderpark, which we expected, vacated. We then subdivided the 2,200 sq m space, and we're already busy with finalizing lease terms for 1,200 sq m of the space. Tenant retention, another improvement, 81% compared to 78% a year ago. The biggest lease renewals that we concluded, again, I've listed those on this slide, but maybe just to highlight the biggest one, Little Green Beverages of 12,250 sq m. Then a great improvement. Our weighted average rent reversions improved to a -3.3% from a -8.4%.
I think very importantly, we all say this every six months. We still believe that negative rent reversions will be part of the portfolio, although maybe not at the negative 8% or 10%. The reason for this is the contractual escalations in our portfolio, an average of 6.5%, is not in line with economic or market rental growth. Our WALE improved slightly to 2.7 years, and our lease expiry profile, the spread we're very satisfied with, just to highlight, year four+ of nearly 34%. Let me end with just sharing a few of our environmental initiatives. Firstly, we've added another five PV farms. Our total now 13. Water efficiency is extremely important to us, and therefore we also added another water harvesting project at Boskruin.
Everything that we've done up to now, the consumption is equal to 36 Olympic-size swimming pools. Those are rainwater harvesting as well as groundwater. Now, we know that biodiversity is probably not that big in a property company, but for us, that is very important. We still focus on that. We have planted 150 shade and fruit trees over the 12 months at three schools down in Mitchells Plain in Cape Town. Then in March 2024, we had our second annual honey harvest, 119 kg. For those who don't understand how much that is? That is a lot. What we've done, we shared that with our tenants, with our staff, and with our property management teams.
Thanks, Ulana. Okay, sticking with the Commercial portfolio, but on the balance sheet, that all translates effectively into a value of ZAR 9.9 billion for the Commercial portfolio. 2% up on the prior year number. If you factor in the two disposals totaling ZAR 110 million, together with CapEx during the year of ZAR 168 million, the real growth is about 1.4%. Now, ZAR 2.2 billion of the ZAR 9.9 billion is currently under contract for sale, and those properties have been valued at the agreed disposal price and are also on our main balance sheet classified as held for sale. The balance of the portfolio was all externally valued.
If you take a look here at this valuation slide, you'll see on the input side, really just the discount rates reduced by about 30 basis points. Cap rates remained the same. Other inputs were updated based on current market data, but ultimately, that all translated into valuations where if you look at the rate per square meter there, all three sectors slightly up from a year ago. Okay, now moving on to the Residential portfolio, which has delivered net property income of ZAR 176.2 million. Now, proportionally, this is higher than the previous year, and that's really owing to the fact that we've got 12 months of the Transcend consolidation coming through, and then just noting that the last five months we owned 100% versus the periods prior to that of 68%.
We've got 21 residential properties valued at ZAR 2.2 billion. The number of units are 3,775, and an impressive number of 540 units sold during the past 12 months. Why do I say impressive? If you just think about the high interest environment that we are at the moment, our teams really has done well. Very solid vacancy number of 2.6%, especially when you compare that to the broader average of 7.9%. I must say, our leasing teams, both at IHS and Feenstra, is so committed to make sure that the occupancies are as high as possible. The average rent per unit slight increase to nearly ZAR 6,300. The reason probably also the demand for rental units increased due to the increasing cost of owning a property.
Okay, again on the balance sheet, that translates into a value of ZAR 2.3 billion. Now, on the face of it, 7.8% down from the previous year. If you factor in the disposals of ZAR 487 million, that's the 540 units that Ulana mentioned, together then with the CapEx that's been spent, the real growth is about a positive 6% year-on-year. Of that ZAR 2.248 billion, ZAR 256 million is currently under contract for sale, and that again appears as held for sale on our main balance sheet.
Let's spend a little bit of time just on the disposals. You can see on this detailed schedule here that the top part refers to those two assets, One Monte- Carlo and Trellidor that transferred earlier on middle of last year. You can see there both at healthy premiums to our Emira book values. I think the exciting part here is in terms of what is held for sale? Let me run you through those. The first four properties are small industrial properties that are under contract for sale, and those sale agreements are with the conveyancer at the moment. You should see transfers take place within the next two to three weeks. Albury Office Park is still awaiting council subdivision, and so that split of those buildings, five and eight, will only take place probably in the next six to eight months from now.
Importantly, Park Boulevard, it's a retail property down in Pietermaritzburg that we disposed of, a slight premium to book value, and that's already transferred on the 10th of April. There are the three properties which we made the announcements earlier on this year in terms of Makro, Crown Mines, Market Square, and then recently Springfield Retail Center. All three of those properties, which are retail down in those various provinces, are under contract and are only subject to Competition Commission approval. Importantly, there is the disposal of the Western Cape portfolio properties of seven offices, five industrial, and one urban retail through to Spear REIT.
You'll see there that disposal, our book value was ZAR 1.189 billion, and we've disposed of that as a portfolio through to Spear REIT for ZAR 1.146 billion. I think what's really important there is that you have a look at what our book values were, ZAR 2.1 billion, and our disposal price, ZAR 2.1 billion and a little bit. I think that's really important, but you can see the significant liquidity that is coming our way in the next six months. On the residential side, this sets out the 540 individual units that have been sold over the last 12 months. You can see there, all those sales taking place in the individual buildings.
Not only has the leasing been so strong, but the selling has been strong, which talks to the quality of our sectional title product. You'll see there that our book value totaled ZAR 381 million, and our gross selling price on those properties, on those individual units totaled ZAR 486 million. Again, a meaningful premium through to our book value, and you'll see this continue to take place.
Okay. Back onto our income statement. Enyuka transferred out of the fund effective 20 July 2023, and up to the date of disposal, that delivered ZAR 35.3 million worth of income. Now, just to reiterate what Geoff said earlier, that was a high-yielding investment. While the disposal is strategic, it is dilutive to distributable income this year as well as into future years. Our income from the investments that we have in the U.S. have delivered $204.3 million. Now, that's after applying a 95% payout ratio to the actual U.S. distributable income. Now, practically, in the underlying U.S. investments, the operating cash flows are used to fund general CapEx, TIs, and leasing commissions. Over time, historically, that's averaged out at about 5%.
To simplify the inclusion of income into our distribution this year and going forward, we've decided to apply this 95% payout ratio. As we advised at our pre-close, the actual gross income in dollar terms in the U.S. is lower than what we had anticipated, and that's owing to the various tenant failures that took place during the year, where we've effectively lost rental income for a portion of the year. There's also been the related unamortized TI and leasing income that's had to be written off.
As Geoff mentioned earlier, we still have 12 open-air grocery anchored shopping centers in the U.S. with our partners, the Rainier Group. Vacancies increased slightly year-on-year to 3.6%. It was exactly the same at half year. Not a concern to us or our partners. They are busy with a few potential negotiations for the space. Maybe just to remind you, the two biggest failures we had was firstly Earth Fare at Woodlands and then also Party City at Stone Creek. Tenant retention, solid 82% in that lease expiry profile. That is very impressive. Just to highlight year four+ of 53% of the leases only expired in that bucket. While also very solid, a number of five years.
Okay. On the balance sheet, the U.S. investments have increased by 3% to ZAR 2.78 billion. Now, that's really due to the rand being weaker this year compared to last. The actual underlying properties on a net basis came in lower, the valuation thereof, and our share of that was a - $2.4 million. But that's then really all been offset by the fact that the rand closed at 18.92, which was just over a rand weaker than it was a year ago. Geoff, do you wanna just jump in on some of the valuations in the U.S. here?
Yes. Thanks, Greg. We certainly had the portfolio valued, all 12 of them, by external valuers, as we do, by Cushman and CBRE. The results of that were quite interesting that the total portfolio on a collective basis, all 12, was basically flat year-on-year. However, we did see that at certain properties, the valuers felt that the discount rates and cap rates had increased. We certainly saw some of that, but that was offset to a fair degree by the expectation of higher growth rates in rentals coming through. As you saw on the previous slide, in terms of the 5.8% positive reversion, we certainly are experiencing that on the ground in the U.S.
It was quite interesting just how in the U.S. portfolio, how those individual assets inside had their swings, but collectively, and there's the beauty of a portfolio of 12 assets, collectively, we stayed pretty much flat.
Okay. Moving back onto the income statement. This is just really like our head office level items and made up mainly, mostly of admin costs, legal fees, staff costs, and ZAR 115.4 million for the 12 months for the current year. Proportionally higher, but again, this includes a full 12 months of Transcend's consolidated numbers in. If we move next onto our funding, net finance costs for the year, ZAR 543.6 million. Again, proportionally higher than in the previous year, and that's owing to firstly, the full 12 months of Transcend consolidation. Interest rates have been higher, as we all know, this year compared to last. Our floating rates on our debt were on average 190 basis points higher for this year compared to last year.
We refinanced ZAR 1.2 billion worth of maturing interest rate swaps at fixed rates that were about 2% higher than the maturing contracts. Certainly this higher interest rate environment is putting pressure on interest cover ratios. Emira's interest cover ratio at a group level reduced from 2.9 x cover a year ago to 2.3 x cover, as Geoff indicated earlier, but still comfortably within our covenant level of 2%. If we move on to the balance sheet from a debt perspective, you'll see our debt has reduced from just under ZAR 6.9 billion to just under ZAR 6.4 billion. Now, bear in mind, we did pay out for...
To acquire the minority interest on Transcend, so that increased debt, but that was more than offset by the fact that we've got the Enyuka disposal proceeds that came through, and then there's the various property sales that came through on the resi units as well as on the Commercial portfolio. Loan-to-value ratio has improved to 42.4%. On this next slide, our LTV bridge, you can see the main drivers from the 44% that we reported last year through to the 42.4% this year. The key positive moves from an LTV perspective was the Enyuka disposal proceeds that came through. There's the valuation growth that we got on the commercial and resi portfolio. There's the weaker rand's impact on our U.S. investments.
In the middle there's the fact that we've collected 12 months of income for the year, but we've only paid out nine months worth of dividend. That's really just an anomaly from the change of our year-end last year, and it's effectively correcting the position that we had last year. On the negative side, again, from the weaker rand, that's meant our currency derivatives, specifically our cross-currency swaps, have increased. The liability has increased. We've got additional credit loss provisions that we've raised on some of our loans. There was the additional acquisition of the minority interest in Transcend, which increased LTV. All of those collectively meant that on a net basis, we reduced by 2.6% on LTV.
If we look at our debt expiry profile here, we've got ZAR 3.6 billion worth of refinances and new loans that we concluded during the FY 2024 year. In doing that, we've increased the average duration to expiry on our debt facilities to 2.2 years. For FY 2025, we've got ZAR 1.8 billion worth of debt coming up for expiry. We do anticipate refinancing the bulk of that, but we've got strong liquidity in place. We've got undrawn debt of ZAR 1 billion, which has increased post year-end, and then that will be bolstered even further by the fact that we've got ZAR 2.4 billion worth of disposal proceeds that will come in over the next six months.
Yes, a good portion of that will need to be settled debt, but we'll be left with excess cash, which will then just bolster our liquidity. From an interest rate hedging perspective, we've got 74.2% of our drawn debt at the end of the year that's fixed on average duration of 1.4 years. Term is getting on the short end, and we're hopeful that we start seeing some of these interest rate cuts coming through over the next six to 12 months. Just to highlight one other item on the balance sheet, it's our loans receivable. That's reduced down to ZAR 236 million. Now, if you recall, we did provide a further vendor loan through to the purchasers of Enyuka. That was ZAR 130 million on which interest is being serviced.
That was offset by the fact that we've impaired the remaining balance on the original Inani mezzanine loan, which would mean that we wrote off ZAR 260 million on that loan during the current year. Just to then end off on the financial side with this net asset value per share bridge, which I think effectively brings together all the movements that we've been talking about, certainly the key movements on the balance sheet. We ended last year with a NAV of ZAR 16.96, and we've then increased that by 2.2% to a NAV of ZAR 17.33 at the end of this current year. Now, the key positive movements to that was some growth that came through on both the Residential and the Commercial portfolios.
We've got the weaker rand's impact on our U.S. investments, which lifted NAV. We've also got the fact that we've got six months' worth of distribution accrued in these numbers, versus only three months in the last financial year, and that was because of our short nine-month year-end last year. From a negative side, we've got the weaker rand's impact on our currency derivatives, specifically the cross-currency swaps. We've also got the fact that we've raised that additional credit loss provision to effectively provide for the full amount owing on the original Inani loan.
Great. Thanks, Greg. Just a reminder to everybody that there is the questions tab on the webinar, so please post your questions, and we'll happily answer those questions once we conclude the presentation. To end off then with the outlook, I think it's quite important just to reflect back as we have in terms of that this results presentation shows the 12 months of FY 2024 against the nine months of FY 2023 due to the change in our financial year end. Importantly, the Enyuka sale proceeds have been received. Transcend is now wholly owned and delisted. You've seen the significant progress under the sectional title residential sales, and importantly, you've seen the significant disposals that we are now under contract with.
Importantly, we also exceeded our executive target of DPS for FY 2024, all resulting in a full year dividend of ZAR 1.1702 per share. Thought we'd also just share with you what we see as our five key deal criteria that we look at when we assess making our investment decisions. Importantly, first and foremost, it should be into a growing economy with a pretty much safe rule of law, and there should be obvious reasons for that growth and why that growth would continue. Secondly, it should be into a real estate sector that will benefit from that growth, that has a high yield and is comparatively undervalued as well, so that we can get capital growth coming out of that too. Thirdly, it should be into a sector that Emira understands and can add value to.
Fourthly, to the extent that there is a co-investment partner, important that they have skin in the game, important that they are competent, and very importantly, it should be in a situation where Emira makes the partner stronger so that together we are stronger. Lastly, it should have the right cultural fit in regard to their partner and the way that we do it, The Emira Way, doing all that we can with excellence in everything that we do. To end off then in terms of the looking at the future, you can certainly expect that there will be the utilization of the disposal liquidity that we are creating for further diversification and value add. Then you always ask us this question: What is our expected target DPS for FY 2025?
That it will be reflected in our remuneration report of the integrated annual report that we'll be releasing in two months' time, and that is set at ZAR 1.2043 per share. Thank you. We will now move on to the questions. All right, the first question came from Nazeem asking, "You indicated that proceeds will be used for further diversification. Does this specifically talk to offshore or domestic residential diversification? If offshore, which geographies are you looking at, and will it resemble the U.S. investment in structure, and is there a look-through loan to value ceilings?" The response to Nazeem is, we do anticipate that this diversification will be offshore. We're not willing to share just the geography with you just at the moment because we are still working on it.
I do feel that in certain aspects it will resemble the U.S. investment, where we have a co-partner with skin in the game, and where we certainly feel that we can add value. From a look-through loan-to-value ceiling, that's an interesting one. We haven't specifically targeted any look-through loan-to-value ceiling, because we know that any investment that we make where there is gearing in the entity is on a non-recourse basis. The next question came from SBG Securities, questioning about the actual cap rates on the U.S. portfolio currently, and do you have conviction that this cap rate will decrease in the next 12 months?
I don't have my detailed notes with me at the moment, but I certainly know that the discount rates increased by 8 basis points and our cap rates increased by 17 basis points on average. Those are all. The discount rate is sitting just over 8% and the cap rate, which is the exit cap rate, remember. In the U.S., they call it the terminal cap rate. That is sitting just below the 8% level, so it's sitting in the high- 7s. In regard to the question from Coronation, Anton, please elaborate if a change in strategy is anticipated with the large asset disposals? What is the intention regarding the utilization of the proceeds? As we shared in the closing outlook there, I've shared with you those five key deal criteria.
We do anticipate that it will be offshore, and importantly, that any investment that we do make does satisfy those key criteria and importantly, that's got to add value to us as Emira and our stakeholders and on a risk-return basis, generate satisfactory returns. Next question was, if you were to exit the U.S., which region or sectors would you look at recycling the capital into? I think we've always got to look at that from a business perspective to see which particular sector, for example, inside the U.S. that we like. We still like our open-air, value-oriented power centers. We still think that there's value there. We've been looking, but we just haven't been able to get anything coming through that is satisfactory to us from a return perspective.
In regard to another question that came through, what are the disposal yields on the Commercial portfolio? As you've seen in terms of our overall Commercial portfolio, you've got to segmentalize that in terms of Industrial, Office and Retail. In all cases, we've been trading out at slight premiums to our book values, so that would then indicate that if our average yield on our portfolio is sitting at 9.2%, which it is, we're trading slightly below that. Certainly some of those assets that we have traded out or under contract for have disposal yields that are lower than that. There was a question from News24. You mentioned infrastructure challenges and municipal rates as some of the issues facing you. Could you give more color on this, Ulana?
Yeah, Nick, I don't think it's anything different than what we've experienced the past few years. In services, that is from cutting the grass and the pavements, providing electricity, water, waste, it's exactly the same. Those issues have not gone away, and it's challenging. Sometimes we need to do some of these things ourselves to make sure that our properties are well managed, and we do that. You also ask about rates and taxes. Once again, nothing has changed over the past few years. We always need to appeal and make sure that we are on top of whatever value, supplementary or the normal rolls that they come through and we've got people that also assist us with.
I don't know if that answers your question, but it's very similar as what we've experienced in the past few years.
Thanks, Ulana. Alistair asked the question whether we would consider investing more aggressively in residential in South Africa. Let me take a step back there and share with you those numbers that we had under The Bolton, where we were generating between ZAR 16 million and ZAR 19 million worth of rental income off a ZAR 210 million collective investment. That was generating pretty much close to a 9% yield on those residential on a residential property. Really the magic there was that we were able to sectionalize it and sell it off, not for the ZAR 210 million, but for closer to the ZAR 280 million level. Then we would look to utilize those proceeds to do it again. The...
In answer to your question of whether we would invest more aggressively in residential? It all depends on what we can buy and whether we see there being value upside as we have in the sectional title sales. The second question also from Alistair was whether we would consider buying retail in other markets? And the question might have been just in terms of cap and reg. We haven't considered that, and we won't be going down that particular road of cap and reg. There was a question from Mvuyo questioning whether Emira is considering M&A activity with other midcap companies in order to increase its scale and possibly improve its liquidity?
This is something that we always look at and, to the extent that something makes sense and we think we can digest something like that is certainly something that we will look at. There's nothing that's immediate in the pipeline on that side. There's a question from MSM Property Fund, recognizing the good set of results. Thank you. Please talk to the rationale for the Western Cape portfolio sale at a discount to book value given the favorable Western Cape fundamentals. I think that's a really good question, and I've been asked this one before.
We felt that the price that we were achieving for our Western Cape portfolio took into account all that future growth that is likely to happen, and they're probably slightly better growth that's going to happen in the Western Cape in comparison to some of the other provinces over the near term and midterm future. For us, it was important that we could dispose of assets. We appreciate that it was at a slight discount, but that's what happens when you're disposing of large portfolios. Importantly, we felt that that price was full. In addition to that, we have a plan for that liquidity, and that will be coming out. When you marry the two together, then I'm sure you'll see why it actually makes sense. The second...
Her second question was, "Please provide more color on like-for-like, not NPI growth figures across the various sectors.
I think very difficult to do this here.
Yeah
... because of the different periods. We haven't actually provided that because we compare-
No
12 months.
To nine.
To nine months.
Yeah.
The second last question or third last question was, "Can you please provide more detail on what you will do with those proceeds and which specific acquisitions you are considering?" Thank you for that question, Joan. As I shared, I've shared with you the deal criteria, but we're not ready at this stage to make any announcement in regard to what we are going to be deploying that excess liquidity or that additional liquidity into. As you know, with The Emira Way, we always make sure we are very fussy in what we invest into. We've gotta make sure it's absolutely right because we're using our valued stakeholders' cash in order to do that. So that's still forthcoming. There was a second last question asking any update on the Inani disposals?
Is there a risk of further loans coming onto the Emira balance sheet? At this stage, there have been some additional smaller disposals in the Inani portfolio that have been contracted for, but nothing that's going to be able to change that, change our viewpoint in terms of our mezzanine loan, that we've got, and that's why, as Greg shared, we've made full ECL provision against that in this year. Is there any risk of further loans coming onto the Emira balance sheets? We would only go down that road if we felt that commercially it actually made sense. To the extent that we do, that we would then need to share that with other people, and obviously it needs to make commercial sense for us overall to actually take on something like that.
The last question came from Alistair in regard to the office market. Do you feel the South African market for P-grade offices has recovered and strongly? The second question, are top tier tenants looking for large P-grade space?
Alistair, I don't think I'll use the words recovered strongly. I definitely think there's been an improvement, and that's why our vacancy's also decreased. As you know, our properties Office sector is mostly P- and some A- grade, so we've only got the higher tier. If you look at the leases that we concluded, I mean, to conclude three leases over 1,200 sq m, and it's good tenants, then there's improvement. Maybe just to give you a little bit more color, if you recall, WSP consolidated in Midrand. We had that space here in Knightsbridge, and basically all that space has been taken up. I do think there's an improvement, but I just won't call it recovered strongly yet.
The last question was on Pick n Pay. Are there any Pick n Pay downsizing plans or conversions to Boxer in your portfolio?
In our portfolio, we've got six supermarkets, four liquor stores and five Pick n Pay Clothing. As you are aware, the clothing and the liquor stores are not really the ones that are at risk. The six stores, as I shared also in the pre-close, our info and our feedback from them hasn't changed. We met with their representatives. They haven't informed us that they wanna close or reduce in size formally. It could happen. You all saw the article in Moneyweb probably on Tuesday, where Sean Summers said, he's gonna close 100 stores. We haven't got the feedback yet. There's six supermarkets. Maybe just our exposure is small. On our SA Direct portfolio, it's only 3.9% of gross rental. As soon as we know, we'll probably let you know.
We haven't been informed up to now.
Great. Thanks, Ulana. Just to end off then, just saying thank you to everybody through to our stakeholders, through to the Emira team, through all to our service providers that have delivered again another set of good results. Certainly, we feel that. We continue in service of the interests of all of our stakeholders. I must say that this particular point in time, it's an interesting time, not only for South Africa, we've just done our elections yesterday, but also for Emira in terms of the additional liquidity that we are creating in terms of our next steps that we plan to take. It's certainly going to be an exciting time going ahead, and we're certainly looking for it, and are looking forward to it and are ready for it. Thank you all.