That's brilliant. I think in the interest of time, I think that's best if we get going. So firstly, thank you and good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to the Growthpoint Investor Update for the Q1 for 2024 financial year. We have a number of members from the Growthpoint team here today. We've got the Group CEO, Norbert Sasse, the South African CEO, Estienne de Klerk. We've got Lauren sitting on the right there, the Head of ESG and Strategy. Gerald is there as well, and if I'm not mistaken, that's Asha on the left as well.
Correct.
Good afternoon. How are you? So there are lots of questions today, and there's enough people to answer many of them. So just the fund published its Q1 update on SENS early today, and this virtual meeting will primarily be a Q&A session. So please post your questions using the chat box function, raise your hand function to ask a question, or you can directly email me, and I'll run through all these questions during the session. Just a quick thank you to the Growthpoint team for giving us this opportunity to host today. And maybe I will kick off this session with the... From my side.
Firstly, we've just come off a roadshow, and there seems to be a lot of questions on the internationalization strategy, and if it would be possible maybe to run through some options or strategy with regards to the individual parts. Maybe we can kick off with Globalworth. Look, I think it would be a fair assumption that there's an oversupply in the CEE office market and this could or should result in operational, sort of, underperformance or challenges over the medium term, as well as rising debt cost. W hat are the options available to Growthpoint?
Are we there? Is that better, Dixie? On mute.
I think, you guys are, just put yourself on mute, I think. Very noisy.
There we go. We've got more people joining us, the team. Just with regards to the expectations of your earning being under pressure going forward what are the options available to you to try to mitigate this risk or manage this risk over the medium term?
Yeah, thanks, Nazeem. I have to say just generally speaking given that these entities are separately listed, and the... In particular, the two of them are listed on the LSE, I find it very difficult to talk about potential strategic initiatives. I mean, clearly, the management teams are available and are probably best placed to answer some of the detailed questions. They do provide regular updates to the market, and they certainly we've got a year-end coming up. I think both Capital & Regional and Globalworth are December year-ends, and I'm sure they'll be updating the market accordingly.
But I'll, I'll try to answer as best as I can, Nazeem, with sort of, whilst being pretty, sensitive around the, what I can and can't say. So, I mean, the fact of the matter is, I think Globalworth, as you pointed out, is in, in a market both in Poland and Romania, where you do have, let's call it, I guess, a relative oversupply. C ertainly by comparison to what we've seen in Johannesburg or in the Sandton, Greater Sandton, Johannesburg are the office sector in South Africa. I don't think that the oversupply is as, is, as marked or as dramatic. So, Warsaw itself is probably relatively well, relatively balanced.
Bucharest itself is in balance. Where we're seeing probably the greatest oversupply is in some of the smaller markets within Poland. So those are the the smaller towns of Katowice, Wrocław, Gdańsk, and Kraków, where you've seen a number of new developments were started, let's say, just before COVID. Some of them were delayed during COVID, and a lot of them have now sort of been completed, and, while there hasn't been much growth in those markets, you've now got this additional supply.
So I think in one of those markets, I forget exactly which one, you've got a vacancy factor of in the order of 30-odd%, and that is definitely adding to to pressure on renewals and incentives and rent levels more generally. So there has been the buffer in the last sort of 12-24 months. We have had a buffer from, let's call it rental escalations, where most of the rentals in those markets are escalating in terms of CPI clause. This is a euro basket of CPI, and I think the last numbers published was in the order of sort of 7-8-odd% escalations that the company was able to pass through to its tenants. But I think it's...
There's a view that it's not necessarily sustainable in the long term. So some of the really large, major global international companies like Microsoft, Amazon, Google, there is definitely a trend for these guys in recent 12 months to let's say, reduce space where they have options in their leases or where leases are renewing, they're not renewing the same amount of space that they were letting before. So that is placing upward pressure on vacancies in those nodes or in those regions, and then in those markets. Liquidity in terms of disposals of assets, I guess in that market, is equally, I'd say relatively constrained.
It's not, it's never been, and certainly isn't at the moment one of the most liquid markets. Warsaw, once again, more liquid than any of the other markets. But there is definitely scope for some asset disposals in terms of looking to deal with the, let's say, debt refinance, that is coming forward. I think the two major debt maturities in the bond market there is March 2025 and June 2026.
So, management team with systems and input from the board are looking at the range of all sorts of options at the moment to generate liquidity, to bring down debt levels, or to be able to potentially go back into the market and do some bond purchases like they did before. I think they bought back about EUR 100 million worth of bonds six or nine months ago at a discount of, stand to be corrected, now I recall 17%. So that kind of opportunity is does remain.
So through a combination of trying to find debt from, let's call it, traditional banking sources, because it's currently the financing yourself in the bond market there is not conducive. I mean, there's certainly the kind of rates on offer for 3- and 5-year debt in the debt capital bond markets there is not attractive. Getting much better much better deals from the banks.
So management are trying to secure liquidity by going bilateral with the banks and by looking at trying to find asset disposal opportunities with a view to refinancing those, those, maturities that are fortunately still 12, where we are, sort of, probably, 18 months out away, before the first one, before the first one comes, comes forward. Nazeem, I don't know if there's,
Yeah.
If that gives you a bit of a sense.
Just, just... This is a bit specific, but, it seems like you answered some of it. Just so we can understand the on the refinance of debt, it doesn't seem much like a liquidity issue, it's really of access to a different pool, being the bank debt versus bond. And are sales contingent upon refinancing the bank debt, or do you think that the current balance sheet levels are fine, it's just a function of cost thereafter? Is that a fair assessment or is it a bit more aggressive than-
Yeah, I think generally... I think generally the level of LTV is probably within the comfort level of the board. And certainly, if you consider where covenants are, both in terms of interest cover and LTVs, there doesn't. There's no real stress there. The disposals that the company is undertaking are not conditional. More often than not, conditional on raising finance by the purchaser. And again, there it's a tough market. I mean, there's no doubt that, as I said, liquidity is a bit constrained there, and obtaining by net bank debt or acquisition of office at the moment is tough.
But we definitely are seeing some interest, and we'll continue to work through some of those disposal opportunities. So it's more about just positioning the company to be able to successfully deal with the debt expiry when it comes in, in March 2025. So, have we got enough cash to be able to settle some of that debt? We've got. Can we raise cash from normal banking lines, so as to be able to deal with the refi? There's no doubt that from an income to income statement perspective, Nazeem, I think we've seen it right across the world. As debt reprices interest costs are going up significantly.
And the cost of debt today, for euro-denominated debt is probably 5.5% or so, and the company has been paying 3% or so on the bonds. So that'll definitely put pressure on distributions. Not for this financial year, and possibly to only a limited extent for the next financial year, through to December 2024, 'cause those bonds only refi in March 2025. So the December 2024 year should still be largely unaffected by repricing of debt. So I think that, that's more or less the focus at the moment, is to position the company to be able to deal with those refinance issues.
With regards to a question, and maybe this will be the last one on Globalworth, or Maya's got one as well. There's been a news article with regards to the potential sale of the logistics portfolio to Fortress. There you go. You're back, Norbert. Are you able to provide any comments on that?
... I'm afraid I can't. No, I'm unable to provide any insight on that.
Yeah, brilliant. So maybe just to kick off, from the chat, from Maya at Absa, where do you expect office property valuations to trend in Central and Eastern Europe, given the challenging operating environment and lack of transactional activity?
Yeah, Nazeem, I would see—I mean, obviously, the downward revaluation trend started in the last valuation cycle. I think December 2022, there was maybe a marginal write-down. June 2023, there was a further write-down. The increase in, let's say, cap rates and discount rates has largely been buffered by, let's call it, the rental underlying sort of rental growth and escalations that the company has been able to achieve. And this is not company specific, this is in the region actually. Which as I explained earlier, we're linked to CPI.
So getting these sort of 8 odd % rental increases, and building those assumptions into the valuations appear to have, let's say, mitigated a large proportion of the negative impact of higher discount rates and cap rates. But having said that, I would still guess that the trajectory should be down. T o take a guess, I can only really take a guess maybe it's another 2%-3% down at the next mark. But, as I said, that would be just a, a wild guess that at this time.
And then just maybe moving on to GOZ. It definitely seems like the pressure is a function of rising funding cost. Operationally the office portfolio's got very long leases. I think the last time I checked the WALE was over 10 years. And there's 4% of income up for renewal. So from operational standpoint, this is a bit of a different one. Are you still comfortable operationally with regards to the mix there? And do you anticipate maybe another leg down on the funding cost side of things, or is that mostly out of the way come 2024? Or is there still a significant repricing of that debt?
Yeah, look, I think the dynamics there in Australia are very similar to, I guess, the South African dynamics that we've experienced here. So with 70% of the debt hedged, it's mainly that floating piece, the 30% unhedged, that has been materially impacted by these higher interest rates. The floating rate there has probably percentage-wise increased greater than what it has in South Africa. So that we think there was obviously when we were in Aussie last week, I think it was either last week or the week just before we arrived there, there's a further 25 pip increase in Aussie. Australia, to my mind, has lagged the world in terms of the pace and the rate at which they increased interest rates.
And there's still speculation that perhaps they haven't quite hit the hit the peak yet. Where some of the other markets, there's a lot of talk that we've hit the peak, and we're starting to maybe hold for a period and then start seeing decreases come through towards the middle and end of 2024. Aussie, to my mind will probably lag. So... But yeah, I think operationally, again, as I said, we were there last week. There is operationally, things are very, very sound, certainly in the industrial portfolio, where I think you're still seeing currently 15%-20% positive reversions on lease renewals as a broad statement.
It is fair to say, though, that that will moderate in the next, to my mind, 12-24 months. That kind of growth will moderate. It can't continue at that level. Maybe it'll go down to the tens and maybe high single digit or low ten type numbers. But the Aussie industrial segment remains very robust, with extremely low vacancies nationally, and certainly GOZ's own portfolio is 100% let. In fact, I think we sold a small industrial asset at a very significant premium to book value just recently there as well. The sentiment towards office is still this is obviously, to my mind, a global sentiment driven mainly out of the U.S., where the sentiment towards office remains very negative.
And that is sort of spilling over into Aussie and the Aussie market. But on the on the ground vacancies are very well contained. I think the vacancy factor in GOZ's office portfolio is only about 5-odd%, 5 or 6-odd%, mainly 1 or 2 assets. To your point, yes, the WALE is very long. I think the office WALE, some of the government lease piece is probably about 10 years. But overall, I think it's the WALE of GOZ, including office and industrial, is over 6 years. So it remains firm, but a tough market.
There's no doubt that incentives which is very characteristic of that Aussie market, are sticky, and quite high. So depending which market you're in, those incentives are anywhere between 25%-40%. And while the demand is there and certainly I'd say the regional metropolitan-type offices that GOZ has is well bid. T here is certainly no, let's say, fireworks in terms of growth, underlying growth coming out of the rentals in the short to medium term until, to my mind, the sentiment towards office and the return to office of the employees normalizes in a large way.
Thanks. We've got a question from Sia, and then I'll elaborate a bit further, but she just wants a general comment on the current group LTV. I assume whether you're comfortable on the current level, or are there plans to either reduce that or keep it as is?
Yeah. So look, we're sitting at just over 40, right? I think the last print was 40.1. The trajectory, I guess it depends on the various elements of the business and the jurisdictions. Aussie office, to my mind, will continue to probably see some downward pressure. Eastern European office will see some downward pressure. I think V&A will see upward reversions. The balance of the SA portfolio across retail, office, and industrial, flattish to marginally uppish. Cap Reg, I wouldn't see much coming out of there, but, I think again, probably flattish, maybe, maybe marginally uppish. So, so the valuation trajectory obviously drives in a large way, the LTV. Add to that, the absolute debt levels that we have to make up the, the calculation.
I think it's fair to say that we're comfortable where we're at at the moment, but we would be a little bit more comfortable if we could just bring it below the 40% mark, through, I guess, a combination of asset disposals. We'll see what the revaluation number brings. We think it's on an overall level, it's probably quite benign. We don't see that as having a major impact and pushing LTVs up 4% or 5% by no stretch of the imagination. So we think it's... We're comfortable, but we'd prefer to bring it down a tad.
Just on the LTV, and it's less about the IFRS group LTV, given the consolidation of the two businesses. Is your funders for corporate Growthpoint SA, do they look at those listed investments at NAV, market value, or fair value? H ow do they assess that risk? Maybe just as this includes, I guess, Globalworth, Capital & Regional, and GOZ.
I suspect you must ask them. Some of them are probably on the call. But, Nazeem, I, I suspect they do all of those calcs. I think they look at the book value, they look at the market value, and they look at they perhaps even apply their own valuation metrics. Our covenants, on the other hand, talk to, the IFRS, calculation essentially. So the 40.1% is essentially what, the banks work on in, in when we look through to, to our, covenants, so consolidated group LTV. And, so there again, the, the most stringent covenant we have, I think, is 55%. The most stringent covenant we have on, on, on interest cover is two pers-- two times. We're currently sitting up in the 2.8-ish.
So perhaps to answer your question, I can just refer to the recent activities that we've had in the debt market, whether those be the bank debt, directly bilateral loans with some of the Big Four banks, 5 banks in South Africa. But more particularly, the activity in the bond market, and our press release today talks to the fact that we issued, literally, last week, we closed a private placement of a ZAR 1 billion bond with IFC, where we're actually getting ten-year... I think, 650 million of that ZAR 1 billion bond was in the ten-year space at margins of 190, which is these are some of the best terms we've seen in the last 10 years.
So we have we had to refinance ZAR 7 billion worth of debt with the Eurobond refi. That was the EUR 350-odd million euro debt, or the, the US dollar bond that we refi'd. Again, 5 banks, bilateral euro loans with them at turning out, I think, sort of 4, I think, 4.5-odd years at, in, in by the end of the process.
So Nazeem we seem to have really great liquidity and access to both debt from the South African banking market, but also more specifically the debt capital markets, the bond markets, but also private placements with, let's call it, institutional-type investors.
And maybe just sticking on the debt topic before we go on to the other questions in the chat. In the announcement this morning, there was the Australian dollar cross-currency maturing, of which you've just kind of extended it. That's about AUD 300 million of the 970. Is there a sense of how, when that other portion, the 670, will mature? Is it quite near? Is it the next 12 months or, or, or actually the FY 2025 period, or is it quite spread out?
Nazeem, I'm gonna try and defer that to Asha.
Yeah.
I know we, I know we have committed to try and improve our disclosure on cross currencies and the, let's say, refi of these. T he quantum of them, the timing of the refi, the average, let's say, maturity and the average cost, which I thought we included in this particular press release. I don't think we went beyond the June 2024 year in terms of the information we provided.
Mm.
That might be something that we can provide in a half year or year-end sort of release in terms of the results release. It wasn't something that we thought we would bring into the-
Mm
... quarterly, quarterly numbers. Asha, I don't know if you've got a, maybe just a, a short answer to that.
Add, yeah, a little bit. I mean, in the press release, we did say we gave the March 2024 maturities of that, cross-currency interest rate swaps, which was about AUD 161 million. We... I, I think in the year-end results, we may have put the average tenor of the Australian dollar funding, which is at about between 1.9-2 years. So Nazeem, -
Okay
... that gives you some feel for they it's not in one lump sum. It's an average tenor, so they come up probably one or twice a year, where we-
Mm
... we refinance those cross-currency interest rate swaps spread over a period.
Yeah, 'cause I'm just kind of thinking about the weighted average cost of debt. The ZAR side of things at 9.6 implies that there's not much to go before you get to, like, the variable cost of debt. So it seems like a lot of the pressure is the timing of the offshore piece that sits in corporate SA, of which the Australian dollar piece is a significant one.
Exactly.
It seems like there's gonna be that piece of pain coming through 2024 and 2025, and maybe even a bit of 2026, if RBA rates stay as is.
Yes.
Even a 50 basis points improvement is still gonna be 200-300 basis points on the base rate, I would assume.
That's right.
Yeah. I mean, you can see, so it, it does differ from period to period. The ones coming up in March 2024, we'd obviously hedged at really, really low interest rates. So they will take a bit of pain, but each period differs from kind of what that average cost of hedging actually is.
Okay. So it's not fair to assume the 1.6 and the 2 is a fair number to apply throughout? Got you.
No, because they would have been at varying interest rates as market conditions had changed over a period.
Mm. Brilliant.
But we will-
Thank you so much.
Yeah, Nazeem, I think that, that Aussie dollar one at 1.4 repricing to 4.something, if I've got the numbers right in my head-
Yeah
... that would not be indicative for the ones that go that are still to come.
Remain. Got you.
But again, as I said, maybe at the half year, we can provide a bit more color on that, on what the weighted average cost of those expiring in the next 12, 24, and 36 odd months, whatever it will be.
Brilliant.
Thank you.
We've got a question from Chris on the chat: What were the cap rates for the sales of City Mall, City View, plus ZAR 721 million worth of sales in the pipeline, in the retail sector?
Can we disclose that? We normally disclose that stuff in the half year, in the half year numbers. But look, it's... I would say City Mall, Cityview would be in somewhere between 12%-14% would be the, let's call it, yield that we sold those at. It's obviously a big chunk of it, right? City Mall is ZAR 200 million, and Cityview was ZAR 260 million, so it's a big chunk of the total disposals. As for the rest, I, as I said, I don't actually know which ones they, they were and what those cap rates were. But as a broad range, I would say it's, it's anywhere between... And you know what?
These things are really deceptive cause I can tell you that it's a 14% yield, but we know that on, in a year's time, let's say, as an example, Edgars are paying ZAR 150, and they're gonna reprice down to ZAR 100. Or so the forward yield beyond the lease expiry for something like that Edgars might make it a 10 and not a 12 or a 14. So it's at a point in time. Obviously, we don't just look at next year's number. We've got a pretty robust disposal process looking at historic IRRs, forward IRRs, value per square meter, yields, and more, but also historic and forward yields.
Oftentimes the perceived high selling yield is the yield on the running income at that time, but the forward might be 20% or 30% lower than that.
Perfect. Sticking on Edgars, we'll skip Ridwaan's question and go to Chris. We'll come back. What are the plans to fill the space of the Game and Edgars stores? I s there an active asset management plan to rationalize and fill these spaces within your centers?
So, Nazeem, I'm gonna defer. One of the rooms we have, Neil Schloss, I think, and Gavin Jones. I don't know if Gavin's in there, but certainly Neil-
Estienne or sort of Keane.
Estienne or Keane's, if you're happy to go for it, you're welcome.
Happy to pass it to Neil. He's much more,
... Much more, out of play with that. And, I think there's multiple answers to the question. So, Neil, you maybe give it a crack.
Yeah. So what I can tell you is that we've been through our entire portfolio with the Edgars guys. And we've got a roadmap of which premises they are looking at reducing from a size point of view, and timelines on that. And we have an asset management strategy per property on how we're gonna deal with that. Most instances, we are negotiating with them in terms of the exact space that they give back, because we would want it to be lettable. But in some instances, there are one or two scenarios where we are going to have to take back a floor, an upper floor of a particular trading block box, which would be much harder to let.
But, absolutely every single one of those boxes across our portfolio has been dealt with, together with Edcon. And we've also discussed a number of renewals with them, in order to right... when we right-size them, that will also be on the back of a renewal on that space. With regard to Game, we are also working very closely with them. We do have certain Game stores which are not going to be renewed on expiry of those leases, and we are working on redevelopments of those premises, in order to accommodate new retailers in those spaces.
And we are also talking to Game on a number of their existing stores in our portfolio to see where we can either take space back for them, where we have retailers who we believe are better suited to the current and future tenant mix of the centers, as well as where we can rightsize them so that the densities are improved. And that's across our entire portfolio where we sit with it.
Just a question from my side, the ones where the Game is kind of leaving, are some of those centers already double anchored with grocers, or is this the first opportunity to potentially double anchor with a grocer?
Indeed, definitely one of them. We have only one supermarket anchor, and that supermarket anchor does not have exclusivity. So very definitely there's an opportunity there to introduce a second supermarket anchor. And then the other one that we're looking at also has the opportunity to introduce a second supermarket anchor. However, we don't believe the space is necessarily exactly right for that, and we're looking at other possible uses.
All right.
Thank you. If I can just add to that, Nazeem, that we've had some real live examples over the last two years where these changes have happened, and we've recycled a lot of that Edgars and Game space to the likes of Builders Warehouse, Econofoods, Checkers supermarket. So we have found uses for the vast majority of those sites that are needing recycling in quite creative manners. And you've got variable additional uses, swimming gym formats and alternative supermarkets, and in one particular case, quite a lot of value-type tenants on the fashion range that will take that space, and there are vastly improved rentals.
Mm.
It does come with some capital rejigging, but your rental upliftment is very strong in most of those instances.
Thank you. So just getting back to Ridwaan's question, with regards to office, this is an S.A.: Do you see office reversion rates improving in 2H or for the FY 2024, or remain at similar levels? And can you talk to arrears and ongoing discussions with tenant in GHPH, the healthcare fund?
All right. Let me see. I don't know if, Paul, do you want to take the office comment, or is Paul in the meeting room there with you guys, Neil?
Yes, he is. Yes.
Yeah.
So on offices, we are still seeing reversions and certainly double-digit reversions. I think we're up at about 18% at the moment. The reversions, specifically in the Q1 , are quite lumpy. There are a couple of big reversions, but we do believe that reversions will persist for a while. We're hoping it'll reduce slightly, but certainly not we're not gonna get down to single digits this year.
And then, sorry, Nazeem, there's a second leg or second element to your question. Was that 2H?
Oh, with regards... Yeah, the arrears.
The arrears
... the GHPH. Yeah.
Yeah. So look, I think one of the tenants in the healthcare fund, I guess for a number of operational but also extraneous reasons to do with rates and taxes doubling in the markets that they're operating in, have put the entity under some financial pressure. And we're in active discussions and negotiations at the moment with a view to finding a long-term solution with regards not only to the space that they occupy, but I think on a more broad level or higher level looking at the group as a whole.
trying to find a long-term, sustainable level at which both the rentals work, but at which the funding structure of the entity is also optimized.
So obviously, there's the operational outcomes from just not only the healthcare but also the student side of things. But the real or the potential growth really is the third party sort of a funding and growing these businesses larger and Growthpoint obviously generating fee income. A re those targets still relevant today with regards to that? I think it was ZAR 30 billion over five years. Do you still feel that they are achievable?
Nazeem, yeah. So look, obviously, we're looking at adding to the fund management platform perhaps, another another asset class. And, those, those activities, I think, continue apace, and, George Mitchel and his team are out, out in the market scouring for, for more opportunities. It's fair to say that in the short term the, let's call it negative impact of the NSFAS, impact on the student accommodation fund is gonna have, I would guess, a, an impact in the short term on the ability to raise additional funding.
The pipeline of opportunities is immense, and I do think the investors are still fundamentally believe in the, in the investment case of the student accommodation fund. given the acute, let's call it shortage of supply, and it's probably one of the only segments in the market where we see, that particular mismatch where demand far exceeds supply. So there's great growth opportunity to bring more assets into the fund, but there probably needs to be a period, a year or so, where things just need to settle, with regards to NSFAS restructure of the business to be less reliant on NSFAS students and NSFAS funding.
I think, the team are actively working on reconfiguring one or two of the assets that, that were badly impacted. So can one densify some of those assets and, reimprove the, the revenues that can be generated, through more beds rather than, trying to fight for the rate? So a number of activities. I think, equally on, the healthcare fund, I, I think that once the... again, you can see some of the fundamentals, of that fund with the recent lease renewal of 20 years to Netcare. that's, that's what that kind of product is all about. nice, long leases, they're steadily escalating.
I think, you trying to find more of those types of opportunities is probably the constraint, rather than the capital itself.
Great. Question from Chris Sobey from Allweather. "Given the de-rating of GOZ, how are you viewing corporate activity opportunities to unlock the value there?
Again, this is where I'm gonna claim the fifth, I'm afraid. separately listed entity, all I can say our history, I think has shown that we, we always evaluate pretty much any and all opportunity, and where it makes sense and where the opportunity arises and where the funding's available any opportunities, M&A and otherwise will be considered. But, I'm very nervous to be to be talking about these, these entities and, and, and, given the, the public nature of of those companies.
We've got an unknown user on the call. Where do you forecast ICRs to drop to following the increase in the Australian dollar cross-currency cost to debt? That's for FY 2024. Is there a range you can provide, or...?
Yeah, Nazeem, I wouldn't hazard a guess. I don't know if Asha is prepared to hazard a guess. I think bearing in mind the Aussie dollar refi is relatively small in the overall pool of debt. I think if you think of our ZAR 40-odd billion pool of debt, I'm not sure, Asha, what the total Aussie dollar pool is. It's not likely to have a material impact on the ICR. I think what would have a greater impact on ICR is the actual, let's say, in-country debt of GOZ, given we consolidate GOZ, and that it's got 30% of its debt, let's call it, unhedged. So their average rate's going up, so their ICR will come down. Growthpoint's own balance sheet ZAR-denominated debt equally, obviously, we've seen the increase.
You mentioned the 9.6 average rate from a... I think, the previous print was a 9.1-ish. So that will have an impact, but I'm not gonna hazard a guess at a number.
Then moving on to Lango, from Ridwaan. "Can you talk to challenges experienced in Lango?" I think we've dealt with the student side of things already. What is Growthpoint doing to mitigate these risks, specifically in Lango? And, IFC, are they converting their $20 million to equity?
... Let me deal with the second one first. I think, they've got the option to do so, and, certainly, we're in discussions with them at the moment. There's no... We won't know the outcome for a couple of months, I think, to come. So we have got various discussions on the go with IFC in relation to into that particular tranche of debt. And, obviously, that was a package of debt. There was a total of $60 million of debt attached to that, the three tranches of $20 million. So there's ongoing discussions with the IFC in relation to their total funding mix or funding package to the, to the healthcare fund.
On Lango, yeah, it's certainly is operationally pretty challenging out there. We mentioned in the press statement today, obviously, what the various challenges are. There's certainly, management are doing whatever they can at the moment to improve the operating performance through increased letting of the office space, mainly in Nigeria. And, but it's fair to say that the wheel turns slowly in those markets, and that it's probably gonna be a relatively slow recovery, linked to some of the corporate restructure and re-domiciliation.
Again, management are well down the line in progressing a potential re-domiciliation of that entity from Mauritius to another jurisdiction, which would be, let's call it, more tax-friendly and/or, well, let's say less restrictive, in terms of the ability of the entity to pay dividends going forward. So it's gonna be challenging, I'd say, for the next 6-12 months. And hopefully at the end of the day the management team there can improve on the operational side through improved letting and driving the top line revenue, and NPI numbers.
All right. Brilliant. I've got a quick one from Tishan. I don't know if you wanna handle this one, Asha. On the ZAR 2.5 billion of swaps, it's the ZA stuff, in 2024 at 8%, on being refinanced at 8%-8.5%. Is that the all-in cost, or do we have to add margin to that?
That's the base rate only. So that's base rate swaps.
Got you.
Yeah.
Perfect. From Sinclair, the first part of the question was already attended to by Paul. But maybe just with regards to how much space was let to office recently, and maybe a general observation from my side is that office vacancies what we were expecting 18 months, two years ago, was to continue to rise, but it's actually been, in aggregate slowly coming down across almost all the REITs. what can you attribute that to? And would it be wise to say we've seen the worst, or is there potentially another leg down here?
Paul, I don't know. I mean, I'm happy to maybe give it a stab, and then you can add to that. our sense is definitely that we, we're feeling that things have peaked. And if you've seen our own numbers have come down from, I think, the at the high, it was 22% office vacancy. More recent prints were 19, and now just below nineteen point something, and now just below nineteen, 18.9 or something. So obviously, there's a it's a combination of multiple strategies. some of it talks to disposal.
I mean, there's no doubt that not only ourselves, but many of our peers, have all been looking to dispose of some office assets that have significant vacancies. Some of those have been converted to residential. We ourselves have got one resi conversion on the go in the Bedfordvi ew area with BlackBrick. So there are multiple strategies to try and reduce the office vacancy numbers. On the letting side, the stats, I think we did include the stats in this particular presentation. Paul, you might help me on that. Was it 55,000-odd that we let in this quarter? New let.
58,000 and renewals of 33.
Yeah. So over 80,000 square meters of letting in the quarter in office, resulting in a net reduction of vacancy. As Paul said earlier there's no doubt that there's still pressure on renewals, so the rentals are reverting negatively. We do see that moderating, but it's gonna be a gradual... we do see it as being a gradual improvement rather than a something which is just gonna fill up overnight, or in the next sort of 6-12 months.
Thanks, Norbert. But just to add to that, Nazeem, so we're doing good letting, and you would have expected our vacancy to come down by more, given that we let 58,000 square meters, but we're still seeing tenants downsizing. So, it's a net, net, we're coming down, but there are tenants who are giving up space along the way.
Okay. Thank you.
... Also worth mentioning that regionally, the mood is quite different for office, right? And if you in Cape Town, then and you're looking for 3,000 square meters, you're in a little bit of trouble today, I would suggest. And I think that we probably would be expecting to see rental increases starting to flow into that market pretty soon. And you might even be astonished that there might even be office development sort of starting in that market, given what's happened and happening there. Our portfolio in KwaZulu-Natal is just on the Umhlanga Ridge, and that portfolio is also full.
On the back of that I think maybe not quite as strong as, as the Cape Town market, but certainly there also the sort of pressure should start coming through on rentals. And if you're looking at new rentals, there has been significant inflation in construction costs. So it's a scenario, if you want to go to a new building, then your rental is gonna be at least 40% higher. And I think that opens up a bit of an opportunity for existing landlords once the supply-demand dynamics have sort of evened out, that you can actually start seeing rental growth in this sector.
Thanks. Looks like we've got a follow question on the Game, from Meyer. What is the expected vacancy impact of Game Edgars closure, downsizing? I assume that would be net of the asset management activities. Is there gonna be a net loss of GLA?
Yeah, I think, I'll answer that. And if I'm understanding correctly, it's what will the vacancies be post all of the letting interventions on the space that Game and Edgars do give up? And I think that we can only... There'll only be one site, which is Lakeside Mall, the upper level of Lakeside Mall, which will probably have an extended vacancy because it will require an intervention in the way of redeveloping that in order to access it, because it sits on a different level to the rest of the mall.
That's about two-
Yeah, and that's about 2,500 square meters. The rest of the spaces that we're dealing with them, all of them are lettable. As Gavin said, there'll be a little bit of CapEx required, but what we're seeing is interest from a whole host of retailers. And ultimately, we will be placing better tenants in there, on much more sustainable leases and trading conditions and turnovers, which will make it far more sustainable.
Brilliant. Question-
Sorry, just to ask-
Go for it.
Sorry, just to add to that, there are some enlargements to those things. Some of the builders that we are doing are taking more than the original space that Edgars are giving up in some instances. So there, while we might have that long-term loss at Lakeside, which was a space built in the original construction of that mall, we are gaining some area in some of the other redevelopments. So the net effect should be ultimately very, very low GLA loss to ourselves.
Cool. Uh-
Equally, I would say the question is also linked to vacancy, Gav. I would say once those spaces are from one data point to the next, Q1 to the next, or half year to the next, you might see a slight little increase before you... as they vacate, but before you re-let them. But fundamentally the vacancy should come down from the 6% odd level that it's currently at. Would be my view.
And again, we're almost ahead of that transition because you're gonna see a lot of that vacancy disappear out of Bayside come June next year.
Yeah.
We've got big redevelopment. You'll see at River Square now, we're seeing a big vacancy of that old Game coming right out of it. So I think you're gonna see a bit of a cut to full as we transition through, because we've had an early start in some of these projects.
Then we've got a follow-up question from Chris with regards to the yields or the cap rates, but on the industrial property sales during the quarter. Can you provide some color on the yields with regards to the sales from the industrial portfolio and those approved for sale?
Yeah, I don't have those in front of me, I'm afraid. I don't know if, Errol, you've got some data there or Lauren?
Yeah, it's, it's not consistent because obviously a lot of the transactions are to owner-occupiers, which is not based on an income basis. But I think on average, one can talk about around about circa 13%, as a number.
Brilliant. Question from Tishan from Truffle: Is there any view risk of a Gars drop, given where the share price is trading? And if so, how do you think about that option relative to your cash flow and CapEx requirements? I guess it's an assumption that the drop sits in your earnings, and obviously, there's a cash outflow from your side.
Look, we don't—I don't expect a GOZ DRIP in the near future. Again, GOZ is well capitalized. LTV is obviously edged up a little bit to 37-odd%. I think the beauty about GOZ in Australia is that at a price point, there is liquidity. like, in some of the other markets, I include SA in that sometimes it's difficult to find a price point where you can actually unlock liquidity. But the Aussie market is very well built.
It's a truly international market at least half the assets that trade there is international money, whether it's direct by international investors or indirect via the Aussie fund managers that have got big mandates from the big third-party capital providers out of Canada out of Singapore. These guys invest or provide the Aussie fund managers like a Charter Hall and Dexus with a big check and these guys then go and deploy the capital. So it's actually international money, but it screens as an Aussie buyer. So I would... We're not contemplating at the moment a DRIP out of Australia.
Maybe just to wrap up the final question from Maya, from Absa. You've highlighted a few projects in progress in trading and development. Can you provide an indication of how much this will contribute to distributable earnings in FY 2024?
Hmm.
Yeah. Asking randomly-
Maybe if I can position it a bit differently. you've obviously given a range of trading and development as a proportion of earnings.
Yeah.
Would it be sitting at the upper or lower end of that, maybe to?
I'm just trying to think whether we can answer that by relative to last year, is... I mean, is it-
Yeah.
Is it a fairly similar number? I'm just trying to-
Yeah
... pull up my board paper here.
Yeah, I think it'll be, it'll be sort of similar.
In normal terms or as a proportion of earnings?
In absolute terms. We always said, what? Between 100 and 200, right? So I think it was, it was a little bit less than that last year, so.
It was 117 versus 146 in FY 2022.
Yeah. Be similar, I think.
Yeah, there's a couple of other things, other projects also on the go here, so there's a lot. We'll have to see here. It just depends on timing, and I'll give you idea. Let's say, for instance, this residential project that we were hoping that that would have been actually coming through in the prior year, but because of a delay with NHBRC, for instance, you get thrown out by a whole bunch of months. And so there's always... It's quite difficult to get the timing perfect, and but we have been fortunate that we haven't lost money yet, which is the biggest thing. And it's always a contributor every year to the bottom line, really.
Brilliant. And with that, I think we just about hit 5:00 P.M. We've actually finished something on time. I don't know if you have any closing comments from yourself, Norbert, before we close the call.
I don't have anything further to add from my side, Nazeem. I don't know if Estienne or anybody out of the room in SA have got anything else to add. Nothing more from me.
All right, brilliant. So thank you.
Other than to thank, yeah, thank you for your time.
Thank you.
Yeah.
Yeah. So, thank you for allowing us to host, and thanks to all those dialing in. Hope you have a lovely day. Chat soon. Have a good festive period.
Thanks very much.
Thanks, Nazeem. You too.
Ciao, ciao.
Thank you.
Thanks. Bye-bye.
Thank you.
Bye.