Apologies for starting just a few minutes late. We do have a pretty big online presence as well, so I think we need to get going. As I believe there are over 150 odd people online. So thank you all very much for joining us here this morning for the presentation of the annual results of Growthpoint Properties, results for the period to 30 June 2023.
As I think in the past, you know, just running through the agenda very briefly, I'll update you guys on the strategy, look at some of the salient features for the period under review, skim through the financial, some of the high-level financial information, give some update on the offshore investments that we have, and then Estienne will come and talk to you about the South African portfolio, the Growthpoint Investment Partners, and touch on the capital management side of things. And then I'll come back to, to conclude. I have to say, at the outset, again, sound like a broken record, but what a, what a tough year.
I think for the last sort of four or five years, every year, there are two or three or four, curve balls which are being thrown at us, which, you know, we, we couldn't or can't anticipate, and, this year was no, was no exception. I'm going back to 2019 with COVID and, everything that's happened in between. This year, I guess the key issues that we faced was, mainly the, issue of, rising interest rates and the impact of that clearly on, on our interest bill, and on the debt and debt capital markets, but, also the extreme load shedding.
As I stand here, I can hear the purring of the generators in the background, and as I drove into the parking lot, one could hardly hear yourself think, given the noise level. So, significant disruption and impact operationally on the business from the excessive levels of load shedding. So we started the year this time last year, I guess, with stood here and said, "We're gonna produce muted dividend growth," and, you know, 1.3% is what we delivered, and it's probably quite fitting into that muted description. But having, you know, faced the challenges, we're actually relatively pleased, you know, to have come out at or about the kind of level of distributable income and profitability that we had predicted a year ago.
So given that backdrop, I think if we look at the strategy, we continue to be very focused on our balance sheet and, and our liquidity. We had a, a very significant refinance this year, with the EUR 425 million or dollar Euro bond that we had to refinance in arguably some of the most challenging international debt markets that, that we've seen for many years. And we've been prep- we prepared for that, you know, years in advance. We continue to carry high levels of liquidity. We have over ZAR 6.6 billion worth of pre-approved undrawn debt facilities with our banking partners. At balance sheet date, we had ZAR 1.7 billion rand, with cash on balance sheet.
Our LTV has ticked up a little bit, but still very manageable at 40%. And, we, you know, continue to, manage our payout ratio at the 82.5% level, thereby effectively retaining just below ZAR 1 billion worth of cash in, in the business. The three main pillars to our strategy involves the, firstly, the optimization of the South African portfolio, where we continue to look at disposing of non-core assets and ultimately sort of rotating into higher growth, asset classes, but also higher growth nodes. And I'll speak to that, a fair bit, I think, as we go through the results. The, the distinction between the performance of our, let's call it, coastal, property portfolio versus our inland or Gauteng, Greater Gauteng, portfolio. But we sold ZAR 1.5 billion worth of properties.
We produced a profit on book of just over ZAR 100 million, and at balance sheet date, we had another property held for sale, which hadn't quite transferred yet. I think the profit on book provides a bit of an underpin on valuations. Obviously, a lot of questions always about valuations and book values and LTVs to which obviously inform LTVs. But, you know, having sold, you know, ZAR 1.5 billion. In fact, if you go back to July 2016, we sold 142 properties at over ZAR 11 billion, ZAR 5 billion in office, ZAR 2.5 billion in retail, ZAR 2.5 billion in industrial, and then some of our trading and development properties as well.
All of those were sold, you know, at or around book value and slight, small profits to book value, so providing a good level of comfort, I guess, at the end of the day, for, for NAV and for, and the valuations. Secondly, we continue to look to grow our funds management business. We now have ZAR 17.9 billion worth of assets under management, targeting ZAR 30 billion. There are essentially two income streams from that for us. The first one is just the dividends from our co-investment. And we have ZAR 146 million of dividends from our co-investments. Our strategy within this, Growthpoint Investment Partners, is to co-invest with third-party capital. We earn ZAR 146 million of effective income or from dividends from our investments.
That is down, but primarily, I think, down to two factors. The first is the sell down of our stake in the Healthcare Property Fund, where we sold down from about 55%- 39%, with the introduction of the GIPF, the Government Institutions Pension Fund of Namibia. They put ZAR 500 million into that fund, and we consequently diluted. And then Lango also producing considerably less in dividend from our investment there. We'll speak to that a bit later. And then the second stream of revenues is our management fees, and there we've achieved just short of ZAR 100 million worth of fees. That's up quite nicely.
If you look at all three, the funds there, the healthcare fund, the student fund, and Lango, management fees from all of those actually coming through and growing quite nicely. On the international side, we now have international expansion still remains an objective and a strategy for us. 45.8% of the assets are effectively located offshore. 29% of our distributable income is earned from these properties. We saw about 7.6% increase in our total dividends from these offshore investments, which we received either in cash or in shares.
We reinvested the dividends, both from Capital & Regional and Globalworth, to the tune of just under ZAR 300 million, as part of the, let's call it, increased offshore investment strategy. Then we also invested another $30 million into Lango. Sorry, just going back. So the salient features for the period, DIPS as well as distributable, so the dividend per share up 1.3%, and total property assets up 5.3%. Our interest cover remains pretty healthy at 2.9x . LTV, as I mentioned, 40, just over 40%, and our NAV slightly down at ZAR 21.51.
This slide always, we always put this in here to try and just give you a sense of the varying and differing moving parts within the business. So, you know, at the end of the day, distributable income is up ZAR 56 million. 1.3% is not a big number, but one, one has to appreciate is the significant moving parts, you know, within that. And, for this year, you know, South Africa increased its contribution by ZAR 77 million. The South African finance cost, the single biggest negative drag on this year's performance was, two hundred and fifteen million rand worth of, let's call it, additional, interest costs, which talk to, obviously, the, underlying increase in floating interest rates. Obviously, we, we do hedge our interest rates, and we set...
At balance sheet date, we're at 77% of our interest rates hedged. But the impact on the floating portion of our book, as well as, an increase in the overall total debt balance, ZAR 1.6 billion higher, overall debt balance, the combination of those, cost us ZAR 215 million on the income statement. Thank goodness for the V&A, because it came through quite nicely and, gave us a, a bit of a boost to offset some of the negativity on interest rates. GOZ was quite flat, notwithstanding the fact that the dividend in dol- in Aussie dollar terms was up by, I think, 2.9%.
Taking into account of the dividend withholding tax and some of the hedging impact, converting dollars to rand, slightly negative, -ZAR 10 million, but still a very, very important contributor to the overall picture. Just over ZAR 1 billion worth of bottom line contribution from GOZ. Globalworth dividend was up from EUR 0.29 to EUR 0.27, and that effectively added ZAR 77 million to the bottom line compared to the prior period for us. Capital & Regional, equally, they paid a GBP 0.055 dividend compared to GBP 0.025, sorry, pence, and that added ZAR 54 million. Growthpoint Healthcare was down 24, mainly, as I said, due to our sell down, and then flattish from the Student Accommodation Fund. Lango, negative 19.
Growthpoint Investment Partners, in total, up about ZAR 21 million, and the income from trading and development, down ZAR 32 million. So all things considered, if you put that all in the mix, ZAR 56 million up. And just to, I think, highlight again, the... what we believe to be one of the, you know, core strengths of Growthpoint is its diversified exposure across regions, across geographies, across sectors, and, obviously, you know, also introducing some of the new revenue streams from funds management and trading and development. This is always a busy slide. I'm not gonna go through much of the details, save to just highlight that, gross property income for the year grew at 7%, from ZAR 12.8 billion to ZAR 13.7 billion....
Our property expenses grew at 11.7% to ZAR 3.9 billion from ZAR 3.5 billion, and leaving our net property income up 5.2% at ZAR 9.8 billion, just under ZAR 10 billion. Big mover in that is GOZ, and a big chunk of that obviously due to currency movements as well between the Aussie dollar and the rand. The other operating expenses were up 11.9% to ZAR 931 million, and that leaves us with net property income after operating expenses up by 4.6%, just short of ZAR 9 billion, ZAR 8.927 billion. Our finance costs, as we highlighted earlier, one of the single biggest negative drags and movers on the income statement.
Total finance costs up from ZAR 3.19 billion to ZAR 3.78 billion, and our finance and other income was up 32% to ZAR 1.4 billion. We then adjust for non-controlling interests for the pieces of the investments that we don't own 100% of, and various other adjustments, leaving us with distributable income of ZAR 5.363 billion, up 1.1%. On this slide, we really just try and reconcile the distributable income that we report to the FFO, the SA REIT FFO. There are about ZAR 338 million worth of adjustments there.
The two biggest ones talk to the add back of the amortization of tenant incentives in GOZ, ZAR 470 million, and the distributable income from Capital & Regional that was retained, which is about ZAR 406 million. So a number of moving parts there again, but all told, an adjustment of ZAR 338 million, which leaves FFO, SA REIT FFO, at just over ZAR 5 billion, down 5%, and on a per share level, down 4.4%. A few little highlights from the balance sheet. Total property portfolio, ZAR 140 billion versus ZAR 136 billion in the prior year. That's 3.5% up. South Africa up 2.5%, GOZ up 5%, and Capital & Regional up 1.1%.
Our equity accounted investments up 12.9%, the Waterfront up 12.9%, our investment in Globalworth up 13%, and our other investments down 6%. The loan that we grant to the V&A Waterfront, of that ZAR 3.3 billion of loans on the balance sheet, ZAR 2.9 billion of that is to the V&A Waterfront. Total exposure to the Waterfront or investment in the Waterfront valued at just over ZAR 10 billion, and on this slide, a combination of the investment and the loan. Our listed investments is mainly in GOZ, was up 5.8% at ZAR 1.5 billion, and our unlisted investments came in at ZAR 1.449 billion. Big mover there, I guess, our investment into, into Lango, additional incremental investment into Lango.
Then on the borrowing side, total debt ZAR 69.3 billion. That's up about 9% compared to the ZAR 63 billion in the prior period. South Africa at ZAR 40 billion, GOZ at ZAR 24 billion. So the movement on GOZ quite big, 23% up on debt, a combination of the higher debt levels within GOZ itself, and then also the exchange rate movement, and Capital & Regional coming down from ZAR 4.6 billion to ZAR 4.3 billion. That leaves our NAV, or shareholders' interest, at ZAR 73.1 billion, relatively flat on the prior period. So I'm gonna skim through the offshore investments quickly and try and leave some time for Estienne to speak about the South African business, which he always complains that I don't leave him enough time.
But Growthpoint Australia, 58 properties, just over 1 million sq m, and with property assets valued at AUD 61 billion. We own 63% of it. They showed negative FFO growth, but that's mainly due to the movement in interest rates once again and their increased debt levels. At a dividend per share level, they were up 2.9%. It remains a core investment for us. I mean, I have to say, I look at that share price, taken an almighty beating from a high of AUD 4.40 to AUD 2.27, I think, this morning. And I think GOZ being impacted by, you know, it's not alone in the Aussie market.
I think a lot of the Aussie stocks have been traded down quite significantly, but GOZ is being tainted with its exposure to the office market. So it's still 70-odd% office, and I guess, you know, globally, there's still a lot of negative sentiment towards office exposure. GOZ, however, in terms of its office portfolio, is you know continues to perform very well, a very solid, well-located, well-let portfolio, and I'll talk to you some of the stats as I go through. But again, on the balance sheet side, solid, 37-odd% LTV, well within our range of 35-45. Good access to liquidity.
Sort of, 70% of its debt is fixed in terms of hedging, but that 30-odd% that is exposed to floating interest rates, you know, costing GOZ in terms of its bottom line, and certainly also in terms of its projection for next year. At a portfolio level, asset values were written down by 6.5%. That's the bulk of that came in the office portfolio, which was just about 9-odd%, with one-odd% write down in the industrial portfolio. As I mentioned, very well let long leases, embedded 3.3% escalations in the portfolio. So fundamentally, I think, you know, the portfolio continues to be a very well constructed portfolio and not much in the form of acquisitions or disposals.
In the direct property space, the market in Aussie at the moment is sort of in a hiatus, with buyers and sellers being miles apart on their expectations of where property values are. So very low buy. It's all relative, but on a relative basis, low levels of activity there. And then on the fund management side, you know, we've now fully incorporated that Fortius asset management business. And we've got about AUD 1.8 billion worth of assets under management in that business. And it's proving to be challenging in this market to grow that. You know, we had... I think management would set targets of growing the funds under management by AUD 500 million odd in the first 12-18 months post transaction.
That is proving to be stretched too far given the current state of that market. Globalworth, this is our exposure in Eastern Europe. 72 properties owned by Globalworth, about 1.4 million sq m , and our share of that is circa ZAR 17.4 billion. 100% in rand terms is just short of 60, about 59-odd billion ZAR. We own just short of a third, just short of 30%, 29.5%. Performing solidly. I think Globalworth at an operational level, solid. Having said that, it's tough. It's also probably 90% exposed to office. The only exposure we have to industrial there is in Romania, and it's relatively small. So, you know, the...
I think the strong tailwinds that the region experienced, sort of pre-COVID, with business process outsourcing and tech and IT, big major multinational companies, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, all establishing huge presences in those markets, leveraging of the tech expertise and the workforce in those markets. Relatively cheap, I guess, as well. Eastern European, let's call it labor rates, relative to Western European rates. I think a little bit of wind has come out of those sails, and many of those big multinationals are not expanding in the region, certainly at the same rate that they used to. In fact, a lot of them are actually slowing down and closing down, or reducing, rather, some of the space that they occupy. So, on a regional level, Warsaw, as a city, still very strong.
But the smaller regional cities that Globalworth has exposure to in its Polish portfolio, they're showing some strain there with oversupply, and from two angles. One is these big multinationals giving back space on the one hand, but also some new developments which were committed round about the COVID time now being delivered and looking for tenants and competing in the market. So, not without its challenges. The balance sheet does remain strong. We got about 42% LTV. We have EUR 130 million of cash available and EUR 265 million worth of facilities to draw on. There isn't any near-term debt refinance to concern about, and but there is, you know, some, some...
Most of the debt in Globalworth is actually in the debt capital markets, and there are two bonds, a March 2025 and a June 2026 bond, totaling about EUR 850 million euros, that needs to be refinanced in the FY 2025 and FY 2026 year. And obviously, everybody's very keenly watching the state of those debt capital markets and whether they open up again. No doubt that refinance in the debt capital markets or with third-party bilateral debt facilities is gonna be more expensive. But for the next financial year, not a big impact on Globalworth from interest rates because the bond debt is all fixed. So the impact on the income statement, probably only in the year after that.
Quietish on the development and acquisition front as well. Mainly, the only real development activity is in Romania on the industrial side, where 61,000 sq m was added through the development of new facilities, and there are two smallish industrial facilities for 13,000 sq m still being built. And then in Poland, no new development activity, just the redevelopment of two of the properties, which should be complete by the end of this year. So at the portfolio level, valuations were down 2.5%. There's about EUR 3.1 billion worth of assets there, split roughly 50/50 between Poland and Romania. Good letting, 280,000 sq m of letting done in the period, but vacancies are ticking up due to the factors that I mentioned earlier.
What's been providing a bit of a support for that Eastern European market is the fact that all of those leases are indexed to inflation, and obviously, we've European inflation has been quite high. It's there’s a term there called the Harmonized European Inflation Index, and the leases are annually indexed to this, you know, to this number. It has come down. I looked this morning, actually, I think it peaked, that index peaked at 10%, and it's now down in the 5.5%-5% level, so it has come down.
So that level of support, I guess, for rental growth on escalations, probably also gonna come under a bit of pressure as inflation normalizes in that market in particular, and in the European markets more generally. CapReg owns five properties, about 185,000 squares, and valued at ZAR 8.5 million rand. We own 62% of it. It has significantly increased its dividend to 5.5p for the period under review, from 2.5p in the prior period. I'd say that Capital & Regional has stabilized post the impact of COVID, which was pretty severe on both valuations and operationally within the shopping centers. The vacancies have stabilized.
I'll talk to them on the next slide. But more importantly, I think the balance sheet at about 42% LTV is certainly considerably better than what it was two or three years ago when we had overall LTV in excess of 70%. So we've seen a stabilization there on property valuations. In fact, we saw a small increase in value for the first time in three or four years. NAV is relatively stable at GBP 183 million or 106 pence per share. So the fundamentals and operations are, you know, well managed. I think Lawrence Hutchings and his team do a good job of managing the underlying shopping centers and the letting and leasing there.
Occupancy is about 95%, and rental collections are, you know, very high. Post year-end, Capital & Regional did announce a small acquisition, which sort of positions it slightly on the front foot with about a GBP 40 million acquisition of a shopping center in Edinburgh. Twenty-five million capital raised to part-fund that, so the sellers of the asset were financial institutions or banks that had the asset on their books, and they provided 40% debt sort of stapled that to the deal, the equity we raised with this equity raise. Growthpoint underwrote that, and as part of the process, we invested GBP 22 million, and increased our shareholding from the 62.3 odd level to 67 odd.
The company also spent about ZAR 12 million in CapEx on refurbing and letting some of the vacant space. Just, I was catching up yesterday and this morning on some of what's going on in the U.K. I mean, the U.K. is going through a pretty tough time. It's fair to say that the U.K. is not, you know, out of the woods economically. Growth is under a lot of pressure, and just when you think everything is sort of settled down nicely and stabilized quite nicely, we find out that one of their top 10 tenants, a company called Wilko, has actually gone into liquidation.
So Capital & Regional does have exposure to that particular company in three of its centers, and, so that, is gonna obviously challenge management again to try and relet, relet that space. It's quite a big group, Wilko, about 400 stores across the UK. They've got about 12,500 employees, and, those, those stores will all be closing in the next couple of months. Right. Then, on the half-hour dot, almost, I'll hand over to Ess to talk to the South African business.
Good morning, everybody. Just upfront, I wanna say my voice is a little bit like the Eskom power stations. They are squeaking, but not at full power, and it's not reflective of the state of the company at all. So, getting to the South African business, it's been a busy year. There's been a huge amount of activity in what has been a very difficult market. I mean, we've done over, just short of 1.2 million sq m of letting in this time. Vacancies have continued to come down, which is a positive. It has come, unfortunately, at the price of renewal rentals that have remained under pressure, so -12.9% on the renewal growth rate.
There are a couple of numbers as I go through the different sectors, you know, that number is probably, reflecting a little bit higher than, I would say the norm would be, but, that is, it is, a number that, that we keenly watch and measure, and, and we're hoping that, you know, going forward, that that number, certainly will improve. Renewal success rate, has remained, reasonably, under pressure, given the competitive nature of, of the market at the moment. And, expenses have continued to tick up as a percentage, given the, the drop in, in the revenue line, as well as the inflation pressure that, that we are facing in the South African context.
Arrears have fortunately continued to come down as we move away from the COVID period, and as a result, we've been able to reduce our provisions for bad debt. Valuations, actually, for the first time in a year or two here, we've seen some firming there, albeit marginal at 1.2. And we've been pretty successful at selling continuously, you know, active asset management in the three sectors, selling assets into the market at, you know, marginally above book value. The strategic property acquisitions have been reasonably minor, just given, you know, the fact that capital is a little bit tight and, you know, there is a bit of a competition for capital within the business.
We're rolling over every rand twice and making sure that capital is being spent in areas where it's gonna give us the best return. We have continued to invest in ensuring that our portfolio remains relevant and upgraded, and we're also continuing to develop properties. For next year, we have still, or in this financial year coming, we've got commitments of ZAR 1.8 billion, which continues that trend. The South African balance sheet, you would have noticed that the group LTV ticked up a little bit. I mean, the biggest driver of that tick up was really the increase in debt in Australia, where they've made acquisitions and they've bought back shares.
But the South African balance sheet marginally ticked up, but remains very, very conservatively geared at 32.9%. Diesel cost, I know it's a favorite topic for everybody. We spent about ZAR 140 million on diesel, but we do recover a percentage of that, 40-odd% of it. And then, you know, the increase in interest rates, you know, is the main theme, I think, in global real estate, and for this specific year, we've had to pay an additional ZAR 215 million on interest. So running through the sectors briefly, I mean, industrial, I would say, of the three sectors, it probably remains the firmest. The logistics space is still performing very well.
Vacancies have come down to just about an all-time low at 3.7%. You know, specifically in our coastal areas, the market has performed strong, and their vacancies are in Western Cape at 3.3% and in KwaZulu-Natal at 0.8%. So practically, the portfolio is full. Gauteng, there is slightly more stock available, but the market is competitive, you know, and as a result of that, we have seen churn in tenants. The renewal success rate here was impacted by two large tenants that we lost. The one building we actually sold, which was Paul Smith. It's a 22,000 sq m building, but the other building, we have actually relet on a short-term basis.
The negative renewal growth rate is a number specifically for industrial. I actually, I think at the same presentation, sort of, indicated that I believe that we should start seeing rental growth on our renewals. So it is a number that has disappointed from from that perspective, personally. But I think as the, you know, the market continues to firm in this area, you know, we do predict that that those, those, that rental renewal rate should come up. And another supporting factor is that there's quite significant construction inflation cost. So if you, if you're going into a new industrial box today, the rental level is significantly higher than, let's say, the the existing secondhand box.
So I think those two dynamics, I still believe, going into this year, you know, we should start seeing improvement in that specific metric. The escalations remain at 7.5-odd%, and as I mentioned earlier, you know, arrears have improved. The like-for-like growth is at 2.6%. That is obviously impacted by the negative renewal growth, as well as, you know, quite a few significant bad debts that we experienced in the period. Valuations in industrial have. We've started, even with the negative reversions, we've seen a firming, and that has been really driven by valuers' views on rental growth going forward in the market. On the portfolio side, very active asset management here. We've sold over ZAR 530 million worth of properties.
We still have a, let's call it, a couple of properties that was sort of strategically not meeting our investment criteria, and those will be sold over the period. We made one acquisition of a warehouse, and then we've been developing, you know, quite a few additional warehouses, some on spec and some specifically for clients across the country. So in Cape Town, in Durban, and here in Gauteng, specifically in Midrand. So actively investing and increasing our exposure to logistics. And then a big investment this year across all three sectors has been in the solar portfolio. We've literally doubled our capacity on the solar side.
You know, just given what's happening in the energy sector at this stage, it really is a key focus area for us. On the retail side of things, the vacancies have ticked up. I think it is slightly skewed, however, by some of the large redevelopments we're busy with at Bayside and at River Square. I think if those are removed and completed, you know, vacancies will come down quite significantly. So we would sort of say our core vacancy is at 3.1, and with all the redevelopments, that'll come down to 2.4. If you look at the market, I think generally the renewals are increasingly improving. In fact, the last quarter, we've seen that those negative reversions were at, you know, low single digits.
I honestly believe that the trading densities within our shopping centers now are supporting the rental levels to start seeing at least, you know, the rental level on renegotiation starting to firm. I think that is a metric that will improve and, you know, arrears have come down. In this specific space, you know, if you think about increased interest rates, increased cost of occupation in this coming year, I am a little bit concerned that, you know, maybe in retail, you could start seeing arrears tick up a little bit again as some of the smaller tenants, you know, may struggle as trade in some of the shopping centers slows down with the economy slowing down going forward. Like-for-like growth is marginally negative.
Trading densities still continue to grow, and I think that will support rental levels. And, you know, here we've also seen a 2.3% increase in our valuations on the portfolio. Also, very active asset management here. We are selling non-strategic retail shopping centers. We've reduced significantly over several years the number of retail facilities that we own, and focusing on a core strategic portfolio and selling out the rest, and continually investing and extending those shopping centers where we believe over the long term we'll get growth. And also here, a big focus on investing on solar into this portfolio. On the office side, I mean, this is obviously the big topic of discussion, you know.
Most folks have probably discounted, as Norbert mentioned, GOZ and Growthpoint share price significantly because of our office exposure. But, you know, as most analysts say, "If everything's full, there's no upside." So, you know, here's the upside, and certainly my view would be that things are actually improving marginally. It is a very competitive market, but there are areas of significant improvement. And I think Norbert mentioned the coastal areas. I mean, if you think about the Western Cape portfolio, it's a large portfolio, 374,000 sq m. And there we've seen vacancies come down just around about 15 odd % towards the end of last year, and they've come down to 7.7%. So there's quite a lot of activity.
If you're a user looking for more than 3,000 sq m in Cape Town today, you're in particular trouble because there isn't actually that kind of space available. In Gauteng, there are specific pockets where we've seen actually some strong demand. The Fricker Road, Illovo area, we've literally halved vacancies in that node. But Sandton remains a difficult and very competitive market. It doesn't mean there isn't activity. There's huge amount of transactions. We are attracting tenants back into that market, but some of the larger corporates are still consolidating space, so it is a little bit of a churn in that market space. But the reality is the oversupply in that market, it still exists, and I think without economic growth, is gonna be... It remains quite competitive and difficult.
On the renewal side, I think, you know, if we strip out the one specific lease we had to renew in Parktown, you know, the sort of negative renewal growth is more like 12% rather than this 20%. So that print, I think, will improve going forward, and isn't reflective, I think, of, you know, the embedded over-rented nature of the portfolio at all. And, yeah, once again, arrears continue to come down. Like-for-like growth is pretty anemic to negative, and, you know, valuations, unfortunately, given the environment we're in, remain on the negative side.
The portfolio, you know, once again, actively asset management, managing the portfolio, selling smaller, non-strategic assets in lower growth nodes, and reinvesting by redeveloping and improving our portfolio. And, you know, there we've triggered the development of the Hilton Canopy Hotel in our Longkloof Studios property in Cape Town. So we've got Hilton on a lease there. And then, the old Investec head office, where Ninety One is in occupation, Investec will be moving to the waterfront, and we'll be accommodating Ninety One in the waterfront on a temporary basis as well, and we'll be redeveloping that property on the back of a 15-year lease.
And then too, obviously, office, given the surface area, the solar capacity there isn't really the main show. Trading development continues to be a good contributor to the business. So, you know, that, I think we've always said we're trying to, you know, get a contribution of around about ZAR 100 million a year from this business. The net contribution for the year was ZAR 80-odd million, and, you know, they, the business is very, very active in developing specifically for our funds business, student accommodation, healthcare facilities, and then actively working within the portfolio on the variety of developments for the on-balance sheet business. From the ESG perspective, it is a key component where Growthpoint typically excels. We've invested now close to ZAR 400 million into solar.
We doubled our capacity in the year, and, you know, for next year, we're targeting to get to 40 MW peak of capacity. There are other initiatives we're looking at in the energy space, and when we're ready, we will announce those. We continue to focus on ensuring our buildings are green. We have a level one BEE rating. We are a member of the UN Global Compact, and, you know, from an ethics perspective, we've introduced a new value, which is Play Fair. And I think in the South African context, that's a very important component within business that we maintain, as corporate South Africa, a very high level of ethical standard, in the way we do our business.
On the V&A, so this is obviously the prize performance from the portfolio this specific year. I mean, there's literally not one metric in this whole section on the V&A that looks negative. So the portfolio has performed particularly well. We've seen a 19.8% increase in NPI. You know, the reality is the property is particularly performing well across all the different segments. We've seen the NPI exceed even pre-COVID levels by close to eleven odd percent, 11.2%. Certainly, the return of tourism, the increase of flights to Cape Town directly is benefiting the precinct. Vacancies are 0.4%. Footfall is up 28%.
You know, the reality is, is that from a strategic point of view, literally, all the, the, the facilities, have, have backup power, and, and as a result, you know, the, the asset has continued to, to benefit, from that. It does come at a cost, and there, we strategically, took the decision not to recover the, the diesel expense from, from our tenants. On the retail side of things, the, the statistics are staggering, you know, to see retail sales increase by just under 40%. You know, and it's up 31% from, let's say, last normal, which is sort of pre-COVID. In December, the, the, the shopping center turned over over a billion, a billion rand, representing a 40 per... 46% increase over the last year, and a 30% increase over last normal.
So these are, you know, statistics real estate people only dream of, generally. The retail trading densities have increased by 48%. The demand for space is strong. The shopping center is full. Tourism is performing very, very strongly and driving the underlying metrics. The redeveloped Alfred Mall opened in the period, and, you know, if you are down in the V&A, I suggest you gonna have a look. It really is a nice facility now. It's got coffee shops, and they've opened up the mall nicely, and it's performing particularly nice, nicely and strongly from a retail perspective.
And then the Time Out Market, which was the redevelopment of that whole food market area, will be completed for the peak season. On the marine and industrial side, the Cape Town cruise terminal is operating at full capacity again. They've processed over 145,000 passengers, as well as 40,000 crew. Now, just to understand, every passenger that we process, we earn a fee for, as well as processing their luggage. So it's actually a profitable venture for the V&A. And then the moorings, you know, the all the little canoes that are parked in the marina there, we charge rental for those as well, and that revenue is up by 9%.
For those that have come into the V&A would have seen the new Astron service station is open from December as well. On the office front, even here, fundamentally, very, very strong metrics. The portfolio is full. The negative reversions are really marginal, and I would argue, going forward, we should see rental growth as a theme. Investec will be moving in in November, in their new office building. We are busy converting 6,600 sq m in the cruise terminal, for amongst other, the V&A management offices themselves, but creating additional office space because of the specific demand in Cape Town at the moment. The hotel and residential portfolio has also had an exceptional year.
In November, the net property income increased by 39 odd percent there as well. Occupancies were up by 56%. The average daily rate was up by 42%, so the room revenue was up by 122% compared to the prior year. Residential vacancies, we obviously have on Portswood Ridge there a big residential portfolio, and literally at half year end, I think there were about six units left, 2% of the portfolio was vacant. The helistop, we've built a new helistop and with leases with three companies there. And that has also been completed in this period. Moving to our Growthpoint Investment Partners business. So we've got roughly about ZAR 17.9 billion of assets under management now.
The healthcare fund, we've raised about ZAR 2.8 billion there, and of which 765 was from Growthpoint. We're very grateful to the GIPF, who has supported our fund management business very, very well, and they invested ZAR 500 million into the healthcare fund in this period. The healthcare fund also acquired its first warehouse property, warehouse office property, with Adcock Ingram as a tenant, and we own 50/50 percent, together with Bidvest Properties, of that property. We are busy with quite a few acquisitions. We have got debt funding capacity there, so we've got an extension to the Busamed Hillcrest Hospital, which is really performing particularly strongly.
We are looking at a healthcare campus in Cornubia, in Durban. And, the Competition Commission has approved the acquisition of the, Johannesburg Eye Hospital, property. So though, that transaction will also be completed in this period coming, going forward. The underlying distribution performance of the fund has been strong, and that distribution grew at 8.2%. And, we have sold a 15% stake of the management company of this business to Kagiso for ZAR 41.6 million, and the total debt of this fund is at 13% now. Lango, little... Obviously, Africa, a very difficult market to be trading in. We do own 18% of Lango at this point.
We invested an additional $30 million into this company. The NAV now is $333 odd million. Lango's environment remains pretty tough. The portfolio has been pretty stable at $611 odd million in value across the jurisdictions being Ghana, Nigeria, and Zambia. And then there's a couple of pockets of land that they own in Angola, which they are trying to dispose of. The funds have utilized the funds that they have raised. In the period, they raised $40 odd million, of which Growthpoint was $30, and they've secured another $85 million, which hopefully will be coming in in this period.
That, those funds will be obviously used to further diversify the portfolio and potentially bring down the debt, which is at circa 40% at the moment. So it's also well known that Nigeria has been a pretty difficult market from a currency perspective. And a recent development was that the bank, the Nigerian central bank there, unpegged the currency. It led to quite a significant devaluation of that currency. So we do sit on a naira in that market, and we have hedged a portion of it. But ultimately, that will impact the returns of that the business.
The ability of this fund at this stage to pay distributions is hampered by a regulatory constraint in Mauritius, so we are looking at re-domiciling the company. The Student Accommodation Fund today is 11 properties. It's over 6,400 beds, and, you know, we're targeting to get to over 8,000 beds, 8,800 beds by the end of this calendar year. The GIPF also supported us there with ZAR 250 million of additional investment into this fund. There is a very big pipeline of opportunity here, and to the extent we can raise money, we certainly can deploy into this market pretty attractively.
So we've, in the period, they've committed to Brooklyn Studios and Fountains View, two developments that have been completed. And they're busy with a development in Horizon Heights, which is at the University of Johannesburg. We also acquired two additional pieces of land, and those will be obviously for future development. The fund also declared a dividend, which grew quite significantly, but it wasn't really comparable because the previous period was for a seven-month period. So the one hot topic, obviously, in this sector is obviously the NSFAS reduction in rentals, and there we have various initiatives that we're busy working with NSFAS on as an industry, and hopefully over a period of time, you know, that will normalize.
The fund has currently got debt at 29%, 29.5% LTV. On the capital management side, the big focus has been to try and term out our debt, and we've been very active. We've got a very good relationship with IFC, and they have also supported us well. And there, we've raised ZAR 1 billion green bond, and over periods of 10 and seven years at very attractive margins. We've also secured additional ZAR 2.5 billion of unsecured private bonds on the back of that, at very attractive margins with terms, so getting term into our debt book, increasing the term of the debt book to 3.5 years.
A big transaction for us was obviously the refinance of the Euro bond in a very, very challenging market. We took the decision prior to this bond maturing, that we didn't believe that the Euro market was really suitable for any issues of a decent company like Growthpoint. So we used our relationships locally, and we have refinanced all that debt back into the local market here in Euros. And yeah, we thank our local banking relationships for supporting us in this refinance, which was a big transaction for us and very successfully executed. And the weighted average term of the hedges that we have there is 3.8 years.
The final fixed rate will be around about 4.2% odd. And I think given what we're seeing in the international markets, you know, that has really been a good answer for us. The $30 million that we have used for Lango, we have also refinanced with CCIRS. As I mentioned, our debt maturity now on average is 3.5%, 49% percent of our debt is unsecured. We've got only ZAR 3.6 billion maturing in the next six months. Our credit rating has remained stable with both the two rating agencies.
And liquidity for the company is very strong, with over ZAR 6.6 billion of facilities available, as well as the ZAR 1.7 billion of cash that we have on balance sheet. We remain very conservatively hedged. I mean, it is a topic for discussion internally, given where the interest rate cycle is, whether as the hedges roll off, whether you continue to hedge, but there's a huge amount of uncertainty in the world's interest rate markets, and as such, for now, we will be maintaining the 70% sort of benchmark hedging level. The weighted average cost of our debt has ticked up marginally as interest rates have gone up at 9.1%, and if you overlay our foreign debt, it brings it down to 6.8%.
There is an annex in your pack, which will set out the level of hedging we have on each one of our foreign investments. Norbert, I think, yeah, if you can come and give us a conclusion. Thanks.
Thanks, Ess. All right, we're running short on time, so I'm gonna move through this quite quickly. Just touch briefly on each one of the different investments that we have and the prospects for the year. You know, Certainly, Capital & Regional, GOZ, and Globalworth are all separately listed, so they put out their own results. And certainly, you know, they can or you can, you know, look at those for more in-depth analysis, I guess, of the business. But, you know, GOZ remains a core investment for us, and it is facing some challenges in the office market, like every company that's got exposure to office assets across the world at the moment.
There's no doubt that the, you know, the industrial portfolio is very strong, but the office market is gonna face some challenges. The key negative for next year on GOZ is interest rates. So GOZ put out their own forecast that they're gonna be just short of 10% down on their dividend per share. And, that is almost entirely driven by the impact of higher interest rates. The thing with this interest rate phenomenon, you know, when you look at countries around the world and investments around the world, often you have cycles that are peculiar to a country. But the interest rate dynamic we're seeing at the moment is a global phenomenon, so it's impacting all of our businesses, but in different percentages and to different extent.
C&Rs, obviously, picking up a fairly negative impact on interest rates. Globalworth has the bulk of its debt in the debt capital market, so we're not seeing or foreseeing a material negative impact of interest rates on its performance. I mentioned earlier that it is obviously in a particularly challenging market at the moment. The office segment is definitely, you know, continues to be under strain, but having said that, we think the, you know, the balance sheet's in good shape. The management team there are very actively working on optimizing the portfolio and preparing for the debt refinance, which will be looming in 2025 and 2026, ensuring that there is sufficient liquidity to manage those refinancing opportunities.
Capital & Regional, as I mentioned, the balance sheet has been stabilized. I think operationally, the business is doing well. In fact, with the acquisition, you know, last, this month that's just gone by, and the new investment, I think that, positions Capital & Regional quite nicely. The challenge is the U.K. economy, and, as I mentioned earlier, I haven't quite got a number yet or a feel yet for what the impact of the Wilko liquidation might be. I'm sure the company will itself, put out something if, if it were to be deemed to be material. South Africa, Estienne's just given you a full overview of that.
I think the one thing that he did mention, and that I thought I would impress upon you again, is the regional distinction in performance between coastal and inland. There's no doubt that, you know, Gauteng as a province or as a region, mainly Johannesburg, Pretoria, is under more pressure than what we're seeing in Cape Town, and KZN, or the Western Cape and KZN. But you know, we do feel that we seem to be bottoming out and that we hope to see some improved metrics as we move into the next financial year. V&A Waterfront, yeah, very good, very good prospects.
I spoke to the CEO earlier this week, and there's no doubt that, you know, there's sort of some forward visibility as well at the waterfront on tourism. You know, a number of cruise liners have booked to come in, a number of hotel bookings that have been pre-made, conferences at the CTICC. I mean, the Cape Town as a city is tremendously active with anything from Formula E to marathons, to, you know, these major events, rugby events and otherwise, soccer events, which draw huge crowds into Cape Town and into the waterfront itself, which supports, you know, the trade of the underlying retailers in the waterfront.
But one has to appreciate that, you know, the base is high, and, you know, to continue to expect growth of 20%, 30% or so off the higher base is unrealistic, and we're probably looking at sort of high single digit kinda growth numbers rather than anything in the 20s or 30s. And then Growthpoint Investment Partners, we will continue to look for additional third-party capital to be invested in these themes. We are working on trying to find a new establish a new fund by FY 2025. It is fair to say that certainly the Growthpoint Student Accommodation Fund did benefit this year from the rental underpin. When we bought that portfolio, we are probably likely to see less earnings coming out of that fund next year, given the impact of this NSFAS issue.
And the growth as well in the healthcare fund that we experienced this year, probably not to be at the same level next year as we experienced this year. So in summary, we're pretty, you know, confident about the financial health and stability of the business. We are remaining very, very tough environment locally and sort of globally and internationally. Interest rates, I think, you know. This year, we have had stepped interest rate over, you know, through from probably October, November last year through to June. So, you know, the average increase in interest and the interest cost for the year reflected the, you know, the monthly sort of increases of 25-50 basis points that we saw, 75 basis points that we saw.
Next year, you know, we foresee that the interest rates are gonna remain high for pretty much the entire year. There's talk about interest rates coming down, you know, maybe towards the fourth quarter of our financial year, which is sort of the second quarter of the calendar year. So, April to June 2024. Not convinced of that, maybe towards the end of 2024 calendars, when we start seeing interest rate declines. So we predicting and budgeting and projecting, in our numbers that, you know, interest rates are gonna remain at that, at this high level for the full year. We do have a chunk of floating interest rate debt, and we have a, a, quite a significant chunk of our interest rate swaps that actually expire during this budget, period or the new financial year to FY 2024.
As Estienne pointed out, we spent an enormous amount of time internally debating, you know, our hedging policies and whether we maybe don't re-hedge some of the hedges that are running off or do we remain conservative and put some hedges on. For now, the decision is to sort of stay at the 75-odd% level of hedging. But it obviously will have an impact on our income statement. And as a consequence, you know, the forecast is for our DIPS to decline between 10%-15%, for FY 2024. And then on the dividend policy, we will endeavor to sort of remain consistent with a payout ratio of 82.5%. So that concludes the formal presentation, ladies and gents. Thanks very much.
I know that Estienne's got a couple of questions here from the people that are online, and we'll try and deal with those maybe quickly, and then I'll come back to the floor for questions.
Okay, so I'm gonna deal with the quick, easy questions maybe first, and then the little bit longer ones I'll try and push out. So, can you please comment on your continued use of CCIRSs? Most of your peers have stopped using them and are actively reducing hard currency debt levels through earnings retention. Do you have any intention reducing CCIRSs and use, given it adds ZAR 900 million in distributable earnings? Hmm, I'm not quite sure that's the case. So-
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, yeah, we'll have to understand that calculation.
Yeah.
Not sure where that number comes from.
Yeah.
But the fact is, yes, we do still have CCIRSs. We use it mainly for the Australian investment. The bulk of our CCIRSs are actually funding currently the investment into our Australian subsidiary. I think, Lauren, we've got about $1 billion worth of CCIRSs. We manage that by reference to the value of the underlying investment. It's sort of a, you know, we see it as a hard currency debt number relative to the value of the investment. That's sitting at an LTV. We look at it sort of an LTV, just under 50%, 48-odd% LTV. So we remain comfortable with that. On the euro refinance, we've actually opted for euro debt, so euro-denominated debt. So it's not CCIRSs.
The intention or our philosophy and thinking has always been to try and match our hard currency investments with hard currency debt. And so we'll maintain—I think we, we're likely to maintain that position. You know, we have scaled back a bit. I think at balance sheet date, we didn't have any pound CCIRS. So the investment into prior to this recent investment with the Capital & Regional equity raise, we had no pound-based funding. It was all rand funded. But we have recently, I know Asha's in the crowd. Asha's our new treasurer. Her and her team, with Bushang and Mwakho, have recently done an exercise for us on the benefit and/or cost of using CCIRS versus rand funding.
Our conclusion was that we still think it's beneficial to us to continue to use CCIRS.
And the basic principle of that is you get the benefit of Growthpoint's rating in this market in terms of margin, and you get the benefit of the offshore base in the way you fund.
Yeah.
Yeah, I think just in terms of retaining capital, which is the sort of other leg of that question, I mean, we do retain capital, but we are typically using that in the operations. Are you able to provide more detail on the SA organic NPI profile going forward, a growth range per sector, or as a whole? If not, do you believe it'll improve, or remain the same, or deteriorate?
It's your domain. Yeah. No, I thought about that.
Yeah.
I saw the question earlier, so I've given it a bit of thought. I'm happy to give it a go-
Yeah
... I mean, I don't think we can give, you know-
Mm
... per sector-
Mm
... kind of predictions or forecasts on what we think, you know, like-for-like might be for the individual sectors. There are just too many moving parts, you know, between, you know, diesel costs and rates and taxes and, you know, arrears and bad debts, and, you know, there's so many moving parts. What I think we are starting to feel and see, certainly retail and industrial, we think that the level of negative reversions that we have been seeing and experiencing in retail and industrial are likely to moderate. And but, you know, office, and certainly, let's talk regionally again. You know, KZN and Western Cape, I think are definitely, you know, you're gonna... We quite positive, actually, that we might start seeing rental growth in the Western Cape, and to an extent in KZN as well.
Our portfolio, office portfolio in KZN is only 1.7% vacancy. I mean, I'll just give you some insight into the Western Cape. So the Waterfront's got about 145,000 sq m of offices. It's got no vacancy. Century City's got 160,000 sq m of offices, got no vacancy. Growthpoint's on balance sheet portfolios, 374,000 sq m of offices in Cape Town. We have 7.7% vacancy, which is halved from just over 14% a year ago. So there's a real squeeze in the Western Cape, and that is conducive for rental growth.
If you consider Gauteng, with a vacancy factor of 20-odd%, you know, it's not supportive yet of rental growth. So we definitely still see negative reversions in the office space in Gauteng to continue for a while. But at least the other sectors, I think are, you know, would turn positive or certainly significantly less negative.
Globalworth clearly needs recapitalization. If they recapitalize, will you participate?
I'm not sure that is such a definitive, quite a definitive or quite a, the word I'm looking for-
Statement
... not definitive, but it's quite a, yeah, a factual statement that it does need. I don't think the board are currently contemplating a recapitalization. I think, as I said, the management team are extremely active in, if, you know, working on the refinance of the debt that's coming up. In fact, the company bought back a EUR 100 million of its bonds in the bond market in the last three months, and managed to buy those back at a 17% discount. I think EUR 83 million was paid for a EUR 100 million notional of bonds. Now, you know, that is potentially, there could be more of that, and the company is exploring, as I said, bilateral debt, you know, facilities with banks, on the one hand.
It's exploring asset sales, it's exploring, you know, whatever opportunities are available to it, including bond buybacks at a discount, and recapitalization is not currently on the cards.
Growthpoint has received a favorable ESG rating from Risk Insights in the past few years. Can you provide an overview of the strategies Growthpoint has implemented to acquire green bonds and meet environmental standards for their properties?
I don't think we've actually acquired green bonds.
Yeah.
What we have done is issued some green bonds, and what I can say is that, you know, for every single property, there is a strategy in terms of the water, waste, energy utilization. And increasingly, we're becoming more and more sophisticated in our approach to this. I mean, clearly, this energy environment isn't really that conducive if you're having to run diesel generators for you know good ESG performance. But we're increasingly looking at things on a more holistic basis, and in terms of providing solutions at various properties. We are also looking broader at various strategies I alluded to earlier in our presentation, where you know energy acquisition can be on the cards from a green basis.
Just to add, I mean, from a funding perspective, you know, we try and diversify our funding sources as much as we possibly can. We've got exposure to the debt capital market. About half our debt is in the debt capital markets in the form of bonds, then we have bilateral loans with the banks here. We've got, you saw on the slide earlier, we did a ZAR 1 billion green bond, private green bond with the IFC a couple of months back. We invest in, you know, all. A very big chunk of our portfolio is green certified. They've got, you know, green certified ratings. I think we own the biggest portfolio of green certified buildings in the country. Investing in solar. We've got an investment in base load electricity generation on the cards.
So, you know, we certainly, you know, do our part on that ESG front and on the green funding side.
Are you still expecting dividends from GWI, given the liquidity needs for FY 25, 26? Speaks to the trip.
Yeah, sure. So Globalworth, it's fair to say, given the liquidity constraints that it has, given this particular emphasis on the refinance of the bonds in a couple of years' time, you know, it has taken a decision to, whilst it is constitutionally obliged to pay a dividend, I mean, the memo and articles of that company actually determine that it should pay—will pay a dividend of no less than 90% of EPRA, AFF, EPRA earnings. It has elected to pay that in shares, offer shares, and the three largest shareholders, ourselves, Globalworth, sorry, Aroundtown, and CPI, have committed to take shares until such time as the, as the refinance is sorted out.
What is the split between caps and swaps in the 77% interest rate hedging?
Anton, yeah, we predominantly use interest rate swaps.
Swaps.
We have very small amount, I think-
Yes
... just literally in one of the funds, we've used caps. So I would say the majority of the hedging is, in fact, interest rate swaps.
Is there still an intention to raise ZAR 2 billion capital for the Student Accommodation Fund, as indicated at the interims? If so, over what time period do you expect this to occur?
So in short, on that fund, we have secured already, around about ZAR 630 odd million worth of funding, of which Growthpoint was ZAR 250 million of that. And, and we have a very, good pipeline of other investments, that are reasonably close to commitment. So the institutional capital raise process takes significantly longer than in the public sector. So you have to be a bit more patient, and, I think time-wise, you're probably looking at, I don't know, nine, nine odd months.
What's your timeframe there, George?
Yeah... June next year.
June next year.
I think the short answer is yes, we're still targeting the two-
Maybe I would say 9 months, yeah.
... and the timeframe would be to June next year.
Yeah, so nine odd months. Okay, cool. So then the next one is: What were the yields on the disposals? And then speak on the different retail segments, regional versus community centers, et cetera, et cetera. So the yields on disposals vary significantly, and it would depend on the level of occupation of the property at the time when it's sold. So I think it would be very difficult to give you a range, you know, of disposals without guiding you in the wrong direction, 'cause every single transaction is really independent.
As a very broad range-
It is disclosed. What did we, what did we give there as a range?
As a very broad range, I would say-
Yeah
... 5%-11% or something like that. 5% is not indicative of a fully let building.
Which annex were you referring? Annexure 26. Annexure 26. It's for all yields. Perfect. Okay. Well done, well done. Okay. Right. Then, oh, the different retail segments, Neil? I don't know, have we got a microphone? Maybe... Is there any comment, Gavin? Just pass us a microphone there, please.
I think, really what we've done is we've disposed of what we call our tail and non-core properties. Those are largely smaller format centers, but really defined by the nodes or the markets that they enter, some CBD centers. You know, where we feel that they don't fit our investment criteria. It's not purely around size.
Quick, another question is: What are the broad cap rates used for the SA valuations, retail, industrial and office? Do we have that in the annexures? I think we do. Lauren will just look that up. Yes, starting on page... Page 48. Page 48 of the Comments in the back of the commentary of the apps.
Excellent.
We're gonna review there, just in the interest of time. Are you concerned about the earnings impact of hedges rolling off for GOZ in FY 24, and the impact it will have on GOZ's earnings in FY 25?
Look, I mean, I guess it depends on your views on how long interest rates are gonna be higher for, right? I mean, the rhetoric that was prevalent for the best part of almost 10 years was interest rates are gonna be lower for longer. We turned the corner, interest rates have gone right up, and the latest sort of rhetoric is interest rates are gonna be higher for longer. There's also a sense that, you know, one needs to understand that, you know, interest rates were artificially low for a very, very long time. And when we think interest rates are gonna start coming down again, which we do believe they will, they're not gonna go down to where they were. They're gonna go down to probably more like your, I don't know, 30-year averages. You know, U.S., U.S.
Bonds, 30-year average is maybe 3, 3.5%. You know, they were close to zero for a long time, or maybe below one. So they're not gonna go back to zero or below one, to our minds, unless there's another existential kind of a crisis or financial crisis of sorts or whatever the case might be, or wars or who knows what. So interest rates will come down, but they're not gonna come down to, you know, the, the, the levels that they were before. So GOZ, I mean, obviously, their forecast for next year already takes into account, impact of, of hedging and higher interest rates. I don't wanna make a prediction on anything FY 2025. It's for the company to put that kind of, messages out, not for me.
But I do believe, you know, interest rates are gonna be, you know, higher, and therefore, the average cost of interest for GOZ, like our own, will go up and will definitely be a drag on earnings.
GOZ's guide was -9.8.
Correct.
Yeah.
Correct.
Okay. What is the expiry profile of AUD CCRSs? I don't think we provide that information. So we'll think about it and potentially come back to you. In the depths of COVID, Growthpoint decided to do an equity raise at a significant discount to NAV in order to shore up the balance sheet and make sure you were the first to the market. LTV for the group came down, but are you now but, but are now ticking up again. Okay. Can you please explain the capital allocation decision to take scrip dividend alternative for GWI and CNR, and the decision to underwrite CNR's equity raise? You've done this in the light that, your higher debt LTV levels and in the period of very high interest rates, which you have blamed for the decline in your DIPS.
So yeah, I mean, it's... I guess fundamentally, sitting behind that question is capital allocation strategy around increasing offshore investment, and you know, considering the investments that we currently already have. So, one needs to appreciate that these numbers are incremental. You know, these are not... They're relatively small. I mean, it was ZAR 300-odd million, the total investment into Globalworth and Capital & Regional, you know, on a balance sheet of what have we got, ZAR 140-odd billion of assets. So, I think it talks strategically to our desire to support the investments that we have. We support, you know, Capital & Regional and the management team and their strategy, and their ability to turn that business around and ultimately grow that business.
It talks to, you know, on the Globalworth front as well, the fact that, you know, we don't want to dilute. If you saw the prices at which those, the, the, the DRIP was done, 20% discount to the six or seven-day VWAP or something. So I mean, the, the equity, the DRIPs being offered at, like, EUR 2.20 or EUR 2.40, I forget the exact number. Don't know if the final price is out, but, it would... Sorry, come again.
Two.
$2. Yeah, okay, yeah, so 20% discount to the $2. So, you know, it, it doesn't make any sense not to take the DRIP when, when it's being offered at such a massive discount, because the dilution we would suffer would be, would be unpalatable. But, just a broad sort of comment on that. You know, we, we are. And, and yes, LTVs have risen. I mean, they've gone up from the 37 to the, to the 40. You know, strategically, since raising that equity, we've been thinking about what we call a self-funding model in a, in a sense, which says, all right, we've got, we're gonna sell some assets, you know, ZAR 1 billion-ZAR 2 billion. We're gonna retain a billion odd from the dividend payout ratio, you know, bringing the dividend payout ratio. There's ZAR 3 billion there.
We've got CapEx commitments and some development spend that we have to do. We're gonna incrementally support some of the offshore investments, and hopefully, at the end of the day, not be in a position where we have to borrow more from the banks. So, you know, in one year, maybe, you know, you don't get the timing exactly right, so you might have spent maybe, I don't know, ZAR 800 million or ZAR 1 billion more than what you sort of retained or raised from asset sales. But the next year, you know, perhaps you sell a little bit more than what you actually invest.
So I think that's the thinking at the moment, until such time as the equity markets and, you know, sort of recover, I guess, and one is able to consider equity again as an option. But we're not considering equity as an option at the moment.
Are we considering buying back shares? My answer to that is no, 'cause we've got investment opportunities, we need the capital. Then there's the question around unlocking the discount, you know, which is obviously the whole world's stocks are trading at a big discount. Our strategy is to get the investors to pay more for the stock. That would be a better answer than trying to dispose of assets unnecessarily, given a specific market environment.
I can, again, just, you know, emphasize that that is something which comes up at every... We've got one of our non-executive directors here, Melt Hamman, who's sitting in the crowd. Thanks, Mel, for supporting us here today. He can confess that, you know, unlocking the discount and analyzing this comes up every year at our strategic offsite, and part of our discussions, not only annually, but at every board meeting, it's sort of discussed. The fact of the matter is, as Estienne says, if you look, Capital & Regional's trading at a, I think about a 55% discount to NAV. GOZ is trading at a 50%, 45% discount to NAV. Globalworth's trading at a 60% discount to NAV. Those are just companies that we're invested in.
I can think of the other partners, for example, in Globalworth or Aroundtown. Aroundtown's trading at EUR 0.50, its NAV, I think, is EUR 9. You've got, okay, CPI is not a good reference, it doesn't trade. But, you know, there's hardly a property stock in the world, and I would certainly say the one market that we're obviously very close to is that Aussie market. It's not trading at a 40% discount to NAV. So, you know, how do you unlock this discount, when the entire global real estate market is trading at a discount? So, we consider it.
Exactly.
It's part of the interest rate cycle. You know, we need to wait for a more normalized interest rate environment. Two things have to happen. I think interest rates have to start coming down, or NAVs have to start, I guess, going, you know, going down, which will have an impact on valuations. And what normally happens through these cycles is it sort of closes from both sides. So, you know, yes, you know, valuations do start to do come down. Bearing in mind, we've written down our valuations for the last six years now, I think, consecutively. This year, we had a small office was still down, but the others were marginally up. But prior to that, you know, we've been writing our asset values down for the last six years.
GOZ wrote these down by almost 10% in office and 1% in industrial this year. So, and Eastern Europe as well, we're down 2.5%, I think, on asset value write-downs. So you generally have a closing of the gap, you know, from both sides. So NAVs, you know, come down a bit, and then interest rates tend to normalize, and the share price, you know, reacts quickly to that, and then you get the gap closing that way.
Okay, here's a value add proposal. Have we considered demolishing obsolete office buildings? So I think just to understand that, you know, if your portfolio is 19% vacant, it's 80% full, which means that most buildings have got tenants paying rental to an average of 80%. And we don't have obsolete buildings in Growthpoint's portfolio. They are all very good quality assets, and every single asset if it has a significant vacancy, is reassessed as to what the optimal solution for that specific asset would be. So it might be demolishing, but then for a redevelopment or whatever the case may be, you see that often in the industrial portfolio. But we haven't really been active in flattening all our empty offices in the past a while.
So then the next question speaks to the GOZ. The gist of it is that, 227, can we unbundle GOZ without CGT leakage? And I think we will not be able to do that. There will be CGT leakage, and the reason why there is CGT leakage is because your deferred tax distribution out of Australia has, does, reduce your base. Which is quite a technical answer, but the bottom line is, our base cost has been reduced over the years by some of the distribution or component of the distribution that we have received, and that capital gains tax liability is at 30-odd%, so it's quite a significant number.
Just to add to that, I mean, again, this, this is not something we haven't thought of probably 20x , but, it, it doesn't work. You know, you can't... South African shareholders can't all directly hold GOZ, so if we're gonna unbundle GOZ, we have to give that to our South African shareholders. It's an offshore asset. You need offshore allowance, you need... It's complicated from an exchange control perspective. We currently have probably about a ZAR 10 billion debt or EUR 1 billion or USD 1 billion of CCIRSs on our balance sheet, which, you know, funded the investment. So if you get rid of GOZ, shares and unbundle it, we still sit with a debt on our balance sheet, so you can't just-- That'll leave us with a significantly higher LTV.
So I can assure everybody in the audience and in the online that, you know, every possible opportunity to unlock the discount, to create value, you know, has been explored, and where it makes sense, where it is meaningful, you know, we will do it. But certainly unbundling GOZ, you know, is not an option.
And there's a whole bunch of questions here on your extension, Norbert, if you wanna give that a go.
Yeah. So yeah, look, I think, in November last year, we did put out, and then as part of our sort of update, we did put out an announcement that I had intended to retire in December 2024. Within that, you know, quite a lot of personal circumstances with regards to, you know, my family and potentially relocating. And the reality is, you know, some of those plans haven't worked out, and I started, you know, discussing with the board, you know, updating the board on some of these initiatives or some of these changes. And ended up in a discussion, you know, with the board, we ultimately we agreed that that I would stay on for another two years beyond that date.
So to extend that December 2024 date to December 2026. And, I think, you know, there's undoubtedly a lot of strategic initiatives underway. Some of them are more advanced than others. We have, we also have a few succession issues that we're dealing with in the next year or two. Public knowledge that the CEO of the Australian business is retiring, by probably middle of next year, just after June of next year, July of next year. So there's quite a lot of, you know, stuff happening, and I think, between myself and the board, we agreed that right now it might just be better to, you know, keep the senior leadership of the group stable, and that I would therefore stay on for another two years.
Okay, then there's a question around what office rental reversions will be if we exclude Sandton. So I think Durban, we think we're gonna get, start getting growth. Cape Town, we should start getting growth. And then the rest of Gauteng, I don't know. Is Paul here? What do you think?
Excluding Sandton. Between 5% and 10%.
Between 5% and 10% is the answer. Okay. Folks, there's lots of questions.
I think we're gonna call.
I think we're gonna put a pin in it.
Let's go to the floor, actually-
Yeah
... and just see quickly if anybody's got any questions.
Mm-hmm.
I think we just ran out of time, unfortunately. It's already 10:02 P.M. We're well over the 1.5-hour mark. We'll take one or two questions from the floor.
Okay, cool. I'll just maybe ask the one then. With regards to your guidance, right, beyond just the Australian dividend and finance cost increase, is there anything else in that's providing that large decline? Maybe some one source or something along those lines?
Yeah, look, I mean, trading and development is always difficult to predict, I guess, but I think we've got a decent pipeline, and we would expect trading and development to contribute at similar levels to what we had this year. I did mention the Student Accommodation Fund. Admittedly, our equity stake there is only about 16, 14, 16%, but it will have pressure on its distributions, given the impact of NSFAS being felt for a full year, whereas this year we were supported with the head lease from the vendors of that portfolio. So we didn't suffer any negative impact of NSFAS this financial year. Healthcare's growth, it'll also, you know, come under pressure.
We had a significant lease renewal in the healthcare fund with Netcare on, you know, an asset down in Cape Town, and we did end up with negative reversions on that lease renewal. But on the upside, we got a new 20-year lease, triple net from Netcare on that asset. So you took a negative hit on the reversion. And nowhere near what we had originally sort of anticipated, but it just talks to lower growth from the healthcare fund as well. Then, guys, you mentioned already Globalworth, probably, you know, the, there are, you know, obviously, not all of its debt is in the debt capital market. So there is some of its debt, which is repricing and coming through more expensive.
So to look for similar growth out of Globalworth, and CapReg, probably difficult to foresee. So you probably likely to not get any real growth out of that. And then, yeah, SA, you know, the SA portfolio is, you know, is challenging as we explained. But there's no other... Waterfront, the thing, the key thing is Waterfront. Waterfront's base is high. So, you know, Waterfront gave us really good growth this year. It's... We're predicting maybe 10%, you know, just below 10% next year. But nothing else that's significant. 80%+ of it, I think, is in interest.
Yeah, interest only. Simple.
Yeah.
4.5%. Any other questions, folks? I think most of us are ready for a cool drink.
All right. Ladies and gents, thanks very much for your time and attendance. Really appreciate that. And we're gonna be around. A lot of our management team are here, and Mel, one of our directors, as I mentioned, is here. I see our auditors in the crowd as well. Welcome. But if you have any questions, yeah, please feel free to stick around, enjoy something to eat and drink, and ask as many questions as you want. Thank you very much.