Good morning, everybody, welcome to our pre-close presentation. Buenos dias, we're presenting this morning from Madrid. We're about to start our investor trip through our assets and the team is all here. A very warm welcome to you from Madrid for this pre-close presentation. This morning, as always, I'm gonna do a bit of an introduction. Itu will then take us through the South African portfolio. Alfonso, the Castellana portfolio. I'll then end off with a discussion on our capital allocation and guidance. Really, you know, today's the last of our financial year. We are tremendously excited to present the outcome of what has been a tremendous and a real transformative year. If we can go to the next slide, please.
A tremendous and transformative year for Vukile. A number of things have happened this year, and I think it's worthwhile just stopping and reflecting on what we've done because the group has changed. Number one, we've exited all of our listed exposure. We sold our remaining stake in Fairvest for ZAR 141 million. We own nothing at the moment, and all of those proceeds have gone into our accretive solar projects. As I think you know, we've done a lot of work in the solar space, and we're getting yields higher than what we sold out in Fairvest. That's all been accretive. We've spoken a lot about Lar España. We exited that investment. We generated a profit of EUR 82 million that generated an IRR in excess of 40% for shareholders.
The proceeds of the Lar money, together with the proceeds from our capital raise in September 2024 of ZAR 1.5 billion, and also the DRIPs that we issued during the year, which came to around ZAR 800 million, allowed Vukile to really grow the business dramatically this year. We entered Portugal, initially acquiring three assets for EUR 176 million. We followed that up with a 50% acquisition of Alegro Sintra, also in Portugal. We now have four assets in Portugal. A few weeks back, we closed the Bonaire transaction. That's the center in Valencia for EUR 305 million.
When you put all of that together, over the course of this past year, we've grown the asset base in Castellana by around 60% to EUR 1.6 billion, and that's pre-updated valuation. You may see a different number when the full-year results are out. You can see tremendous growth in Castellana's direct business. Today, it's 100% direct assets, as is Vukile, 100% direct assets. Very important to highlight that all of the acquisitions that have been made have been fully funded. They're accretive. There is no cash drag, and most importantly, there is no further equity funding requirements. These are now all in the base, fully funded, and I think in terms of your modeling going forward, certainly, you know, we highlight that they're accretive.
I'll talk about the numbers a bit later in the presentation. Again, just to highlight, there is no further equity funding required for these transactions. Operationally, we've had another very strong year. Itu and Alfonso will take you through the detail. Itu in South Africa generated like-for-like NOI growth of 6.4%, and importantly, we see that trending upwards in the year ahead. Castellana generated NOI growth of 2%, and that will also trend upwards. Now remember, that number was held back by some of the value-add projects that were being done during the course of the year. Those are now complete, and you'll see the benefit of those coming through in financial 2026.
Just to also clarify that our free float has now increased from 91% to 97%, and that was effective from the 24th of March, 2025. Overall, I'm very pleased to confirm our guidance for FY 2025 of growth in FFO per share will be between our original guidance of 2%-4%, and our growth in dividends per share will be 6%. Just to say that all the numbers we're talking about and what we're gonna go through now are based on 11 months actual to the end of February. Obviously our forecast for the month of March, although we're very confident that all the numbers will remain as we are going through them now.
Before I hand over to Itu, just to reiterate, confirming guidance for the year, we will achieve our 2%-4% growth in FFO per share and growth in dividend per share of 6%. Itu, I would now like to hand over to you, please, to go through the South Africa numbers.
Brilliant. Thanks, Lawrence. Good morning, everyone. Yeah, it most certainly does give me a great pleasure to present this pre-close update for the AC business for financial year 2025. As Lawrence has said, the figures that I'll be presenting will be up until the end of Feb. In essence, in directionality that over the past 31 days, we've seen much of the same as what I'll be presenting. The overall tone of this update, you'll see is upbeat and positive, driven by continued strong latent performance and increase in the top line, but also significant continued progress in the cost containment strategy that we have.
I'd say in addition to the operational efficiencies that we continue to drive within the portfolio, we've also seen, you know, significant benefit from, you know, macro political and economic tailwinds in the SA context. You know, the impact of the GNU successful elections have been positive for business confidence. Also in this current financial year, we had nine months of no load shedding up until January this year. In the second half of the year, we had the two-pillar pension fund reform that's also impacted positively on our NOI. All in all, you know, very strong positive momentum for the portfolio.
That's resulted in our NOI growth at 6.4%, which is an increase from the 5.4% that we saw at this point last year. The biggest driver there is cost containment, so we've had additional solar that's been deployed in the portfolio. In fact, in the past 12 months, we would have increased our solar exposure by 64%, so it's been our biggest year of solar rollout since we started the program about 10 years ago. We've also had significant savings in security and cleaning. We retendered those in the past year, so that's flowed through to the bottom line. Because of the positivity around load shedding, we've had significant diesel savings, so that's driven, you know, some of the outperformance.
From a trading perspective, trading densities have improved from the 2.4% that you see at March 2024. That's increased now to 4.8%. Really strong growth, you know, across the multiple segments that we have, driven by the township portfolio that grew at 7.8% and our rural portfolio up 4.4%. Our vacancies are in line with where we were at the end of the previous financial year, remained at the low 1.9%. We consider that as pretty much fully lit, and it just considers the churn that we have within the portfolio. What doesn't come across in the vacancy number is that we've really improved on the quality of our tenants.
We've done circa 20,000 squares worth of deals that, you know, we've looked to replace underperforming, and driven optimal tenant mix in our, in our malls, particularly in the township and the commuter malls. Right. With the vacancies at a segmental level, rural at 0.1%. We've seen an improvement in the urban vacancies, from 1.5% to 1.2%. The star performer there in the past year has been East Rand Mall. We've seen a complete turnaround at East Rand Mall. That's sitting at almost fully lit, at the moment. We've also seen a decrease, in commuter and overall township vacancies. On the reversionary front, our reversion rate is at 2.3% positive.
Our expectation is that in the next 12 months, our reversion should really edge towards aligning with our trading density growth, you know, looking to be above the 4% mark. A good story that, you know, that's come out in this, in this financial year has been the cost-to-income ratio. Our cost-to-income ratio has decreased from 16.8 to 15.1%. We anticipate that in the year ahead, we'll probably see further improvement there. That's predominantly due to our solar capacity increasing from 21.6 megawatt peak to 35.5 in the past year. Most of the work that we did was in our KZN and East MK properties.
We still have another potential 10 MWp that we would look to deploy in the following year, and then we would have exhausted all of our roof space in our malls. That's quite positive. We've also seen an improvement in our collection rates. Also, we've seen an environment of lower arrears throughout the portfolio, and this is a product of the positive trade and positive sentiment and the stronger consumer health that we're seeing, you know, across all of the segments of the portfolio. When one looks at the table on the right-hand side, you know, you look at the focus on the efficiency measures, you'll see that our rent to sales, tenant retention, footfall, contractual escalation all remain in line with our prior period's excellent results.
The portfolio overall, I think, is, you know, continues to be very well-positioned, dominant across all provinces. We still think that, you know, we can sustain the growth that we've shown in this year and also show an improvement into the year ahead. Thanks, Marijke. On to the next slide. Drilling into a bit of the category performance, looking at the detail. All of our categories are showing growth in trading densities, which really signals the positive trades that we've seen, you know, across all of the segments that we have within the portfolio. The grocery category, which is the second biggest category in the portfolio in terms of GLA, it showed an improvement from 0.9% to 5.6%.
The fashion category, which is one that we've been looking at very closely, has also shown significant improvement from 0.9% to 3.4% in the past year. Our pharmacies category continue to be a top quartile performer, up 6.1% this year, from an already high 7.7% in FY 2024. If one looks at the second last bullet point on the slide, a couple of categories really performing above inflation, department stores, cell phone, bottle stores, electronics. Really happy that at a category level, we're seeing significant improvement across all of our segments, whether you're looking at rural, township, value centers and even the urban context. Thanks, Marijke, on to the next slide.
With regards to footfall and sales, you know, segmental analysis of our trading density really shows growth across all of our segments. Once again, you know, focusing on our township and rural portfolio, you're seeing growth in trading densities turnover as well as a footfall. Footfall in the portfolio has grown by 1%. We've seen this consistently across the industry that, you know, footfall is growing at a less measured pace compared to, let's say, our trading densities. So a spend per head when people do go to the mall is higher, and they're frequenting our malls slightly less than they did over, let's say, the past five years.
If you look at the customer spend per head in the portfolio, that's increased from ZAR 143 to ZAR 176 per visit. Strong performance that we're seeing around support of our malls in Gauteng as well as the Western Cape. Really proud to see, you know, the improvement in Islazul Mall, showing a 15.5% increase in footfall. Overall, you know, very happy and comfortable with where our sales have landed, as well as our footfall. Even if you compare January last year to January this year, you'll see that from a footfall perspective, our rural portfolio, township, commuter and even our urban portfolio have also an increase. Thanks, Veronica. Last slide.
In terms of our leasing activity, really happy to see that we've had some vibrant leasing activity and strong support from the majority of our top 10 retailers, mostly national tenants. We've done approximately 600 deals within the portfolio, signed over ZAR 1 billion worth of lease values. And have done new and renewals, quantum of about 130,000 square meters worth of deals. Although the vacancies look like, you know, they're exactly the same as we were at this point last year, quite a bit of work has happened in the portfolio. We really continue to see strong support predominantly from our national retailers.
When, you know, when you focus at our, at our WALE of our renewals as well as our new deals, it's higher than the current portfolio WALE of three point three years, which really indicates, you know, confidence in the portfolio from our retailers. To summarize, before I hand over to Alfonso, you know, really, you know, upbeat and proud of the team for delivering such a strong set of results in a tough operating environment and conditions on the ground, particularly around issues of infrastructure. We anticipate that in the year ahead, we'll continue to make, you know, additional traction on our cost-to-income ratio. That should trend lower.
We think that, we'll continue to grow our NOI, at a level that, will be inflation-beating. Really proud of, where the portfolio is. With that, I'd like to, thank you for your attention and hand over to Alfonso to give us an update on Castellana.
Thank you, Vito. Yeah, great. Another great year for South Africa, definitely. Well, buenos dias, everyone. Greetings from Madrid, and thank you for joining us on this pre-close presentation for our FY 2025 full-year results. As Lawrence has explained, before, this FY 2025 has been a transformative year for Castellana Properties, including disposals of Merostir and La España shares. We have closed transactions for a value of almost EUR 800 million. A quite significant amount given the still recovering investment markets in Iberia. We have grown our direct managed assets by circa 60%, implying, of course, a lot of work and pressure to get all done. However, the Castellana team is prouder and more motivated than ever to keep this path of outstanding growth.
Not necessarily adding more assets in the short run, as there is enough to digest already, as we did with our existing portfolio, put the new investments to work properly, to extract maximum value for all stakeholders. Let me start the Iberian section with the trading environment in Spain. The Spanish economy keeps leading the European countries in terms of growth. GDP grew 3.2% in 2024, having been revised positively several times during the year. Spain is now definitely in fashion. Surveys to investors from most consulting firms conclude that Spain is the first destination for real estate investment in 2025. Let's see if Mr. Trump finally allows it.
If we add all positive metrics such as employment, consumer demand, decreasing interest rates and minimum debt in the form of mortgages of families, all that should keep private expenditure at high levels in the Spanish environment. Our most powerful industry, tourism, set a new record with almost 94 million foreign visitors, which kept Spain as the second most visited country in the world after France. Expenditure of this segment has increased by 16% compared to previous year, giving an outstanding outlook for the country in the near future. Next slide, please. As you all know, from this financial year, we are to report on Portugal, as we have successfully entered this market with a lot of strength and excitement. The Portuguese economy is also one of the best performing in Europe now.
Spain, Portugal surprised all economists in 2024, growing above expectations by almost 2%. The Bank of Portugal predicts to grow 2.5% in this 2025, improving last year's growth. The base for it would be very similar to Spanish motives, good employment rates, a healthy private consumption, and a strong tourist industry growing significantly. Next slide, please. Moving directly to our main metrics. On a like-for-like basis, our Spanish portfolio kept breaking records in number of visitors. It reached 46.5 million visits in 2024. All the excellent work delivered at asset level by our hardworking team is definitely making the difference to the benchmark that we keep beating almost every month.
Special mention to El Faro and Bahía Sur that have broken the hurdle of 8 million visits in a year, and significant achievement for provincial shopping centers. Also impressive, the 5 million visits of Puerta Europa in a town of only 125,000 people. That given its dominance, it obviously has increased its catchment area significantly. When looking at tenovers, our tenant sales have grown 5% in 2024, growing larger now in the retail price category versus shopping center that have grown 4.1% in the period. Once again, this good performance of footfall and sales, together with other market-leading metrics such as OCR averages, rent collection rates, or vacancy rates, confirm without doubt the strength of our portfolio and its very solid cash flows, improving along time. Thanks to the active asset management performed at operation levels.
On Portugal, looking at the Portuguese metrics, while we see some assets in Portugal that haven't yet recovered their pre-pandemic levels, our portfolio there has seen very healthy growth in number of visits, reaching 3% in 2024. Highlights, LoureShopping, which overpassed the 6 million level, growing 5.5% from last year. On sales, growth rates are even better, with an impressive weighted average growth of 6.7% in 2024 versus 2023. The shining star again is LoureShopping, that has reached 10.2% sales growth in the period. Very good performing metrics that encourages us to keep looking at Portugal as a great market for Castellana to seek opportunities to grow. Next one. Dipping into sales, Next slide, please. Yeah.
Dipping into sales and breaking it down to categories, we also see very impressive growth rates across the board in both countries. In Spain, homeware, fashion, and F&B are the most growing. Worth to mention that given those categories are the ones with highest weights in terms of rental income in the portfolio, the fact that they are consistently growing so healthy, it comes with a high expectation of growing rental income for us going forward. Next slide. In Portugal, same story. All categories growing at very healthy levels, and the ones growing most with a high weight in terms of rent in the portfolio. Very good news and outlook for both portfolios. Next slide. Looking at the operating metrics in Spain, once again, we are keeping market-leading figures in occupancy and rent collection rates for the period.
With figures close to 100%, they talk very well on the know-how and great performance of our teams. As I always say, it supports very much the portfolio cash flows sustainability. Very active leasing activity during the period. Up to February, we have transacted 158 leasing deals, divided in 55 renewals with a positive progression rate of circa 29%. Once again, let me stress that this is excluding CPI as indexations are not normally coincidental of expiries. The most impressive figures come on new leases signed, 103 in the period, pushing rental levels up by almost 30% from the previous existing rent of those units. This clearly proves our historic claim of having an under-rented portfolio, which can be improved a long time when our team does its magic with relocations, resizings, and replacements. Next one.
In Portugal, healthy figures so far, given the less intensive management exercise there to date. Still, a 98% occupancy is a full occupancy rate, taking into account structural rotation. We are still working along the former property managers in order to understand better and generally embed knowledge and processes in the management of the portfolio. I am sure that during next year, our team will be able to improve those already good metrics, harvesting the benefits of an internalized management strategy. Good lease activity during this period with 70 leasing transactions, of which 47 renewals have seen positive reversions and very positive new leasing performance, increasing rents by, in almost 20% of such retenanting performed. In general, very good performance in both portfolios.
That gives us a strong certainty for the closing of this period and a very promising outlook as a start point for an even better FY 2026. With this, I give it back to Lawrence to carry out with capital allocation and guidance. Thank you very much for your attention.
Great. Alfonso, thank you very much. Again, I think it's most appropriate for me to thank both you and Itu for your tremendous leadership on our respective teams. The numbers are really fantastic. We're delighted with what your teams have achieved in the past year. Just to have a look at some of the asset allocation. As I said, you know, it's been a transformative year for us. There've been a lot of deals, and we thought it's probably a good idea. Just to actually go through each of the deals in the numbers to help you. We started off with our acquisition and entry into Portugal. We acquired an initial three assets there for ZAR 176.5 million. All these figures I'm quoting are excluding transaction costs.
That was at a yield of 9.27%. We've got a 38% LTV on that portfolio of three assets, and that should generate a cash-on-cash return in year one of 10.3%. We followed that up with an acquisition of 50% of a center called Allegro Centro. That was for EUR 44.5 million. That was at a yield of 8%. There's 43% LTV on that asset. That will generate a cash-on-cash return of 8.7%. The current four Portuguese assets are housed in a vehicle called Caminho. Castellana owns 70% of Caminho, our partners, RMB, own the remaining 30%.
There is a call option in place for us to acquire that RMB stake, really at any time that we choose, going forward. Turning to Spain and the big transaction, the 100% acquisition of the Bonaire Shopping Centre, which was closed a couple of weeks ago. That was for EUR 305 million. That was at a purchase yield of 7.2%. We have 40% debt against the asset based on cost, and that will generate a cash-on-cash return of 8.25%. It's important to say there is one more acquisition in Portugal that we expect to close in the next few weeks. Both the debt and the equity funding, is already in place for that, and therefore, no need, you know, for further funding, in that regard.
I think really what this highlights is that the investment team has been exceptional in the past year in finding assets that are at yields above where the market is trading. There's no question that the yields in Spain and Portugal have tightened over the last year, probably by about, I would say 100 to 150 basis points. You can see from the yields at which we've purchased, they're well ahead of where the market is, and I think that's a real testament to our investment approach. We generally don't get involved in marketed processes where it becomes a competitive bidding process. We've stayed out of those. We are very selective in trying to do off-market deals and finding the right opportunities, and I think this slide highlights what we've been able to do.
On the South African front, it seems like a long time ago, it was still in this financial year, we acquired 50% of Mall of Umhlanga. That was BT Ngebs. We've rebranded the mall. Ethan and his team have made significant progress in repositioning the mall. Vacancies have gone from, I think, 18% to just under 2%, we expect to generate a yield in excess of 10% on that asset. Again, a phenomenal piece of work from the team in South Africa. What does this mean? I think it's very important to highlight those two pie charts on the right. At year-end, we expect about 65% of our assets to be based in Iberia, 35% in South Africa.
I think when we talk about a transformative year, you can see what this really means in terms of the whole shape of our business, sort of moving more offshore than onshore in terms of size. In the year ahead, we would expect about 60% of our earnings of our NOI to be coming from Iberia versus 40% in South Africa. You can see that sort of really the hard currency nature of our business has really intensified in this past year. You know, we expect to see those benefits coming through going forward. Turning to the outlook and guidance for the year ahead. As Alfonso said, you know, we've grown the Castellana asset base by nearly 60%. It now accounts for 65% of the group GAAP.
It's very important for us to allow time for the team to focus on integration, optimization, and crystallizing value from these assets. I think what you've seen over time is the Castellana team's ability to drive value from the asset through better leasing, through value-added projects, et cetera. All of these assets that we've bought have been bought specifically because we believe there is value to add to them. None of them are what we would call dry assets. They've all got the potential for further growth and expansion. Just as you've seen us grow assets like El Faro, Bahía Sur, Los Arcos, Del Sur, you will see us grow the assets that we've just bought in the years ahead.
I think that's very exciting because that tells you we generally do projects at accretive levels, and that should sort of be sort of a very good runway for growth going forward. I think the focus now, as I said, is on integration, optimization, and starting to crystallize those plans to extract value from the assets. As such, you know, we're not looking to actively close new deals in Castellana until such time as we're confident that the new assets are fully embedded into our processes. That being said, we're always going to remain open to consider opportunistic deals as and when they're presented.
We always remain active in the market, but we're not at the moment looking to sort of, you know, push the growth dramatically unless something really exciting lands on our desk and we're able to review that. Obviously, that excludes the asset that we're closing in Portugal, but that's a couple of weeks away from finalization. I know I've stressed this point, but there sort of always seems to be that perception that Vukile is looking to raise equity. I wanna be very clear, we do not anticipate raising further equity for the time being, either through DRIPs or through book builds. You'll recall that we said we would use DRIPs offensively as opposed to defensively.
In other words, where we had an opportunity to deploy money, we would use DRIPs, which is what we did in the past year. We raised about ZAR 800 million through DRIPs. Sorry, if you can go back to the next slide, please. We used about ZAR 800 million of DRIPs in order to grow our investment case. What we won't do is look to use DRIPs in the coming year, based on what we're seeing at this stage. What I'm going to do now is something a bit out of the ordinary. I'm gonna give you guidance for FY 2026. We normally do that only in June when results come out. We've just finished our budgeting cycle for FY 2026.
We've been through our various governance processes, and we're very happy to provide preliminary guidance for FY 2026 of growth in both FFO and dividend per share of at least 6%. That is based on two key assumptions. A Euro ZAR exchange rate of 18.65, and no further interest rate cuts in South Africa, but two further Euro interest rate cuts in FY 2026. Just to sort of dig into that in a bit more detail. The most important driver in our number is going to be the exchange rate. You'll see at 18.65, it's quite a bit below the current spot level. We have based it on median forecasts of the big five South African banks, and that is sort of where we have ended up.
Obviously, if the exchange rate was higher, in other words, closer to 19, you would expect that growth rate to be bigger. As you're factoring your numbers and building your models for the year ahead, the growth of at least 6% is based on 18.65. I'm sure you're gonna have your own different views as to what the exchange rate will be, but it's important for us just to set that out. Because of the very high hedging components in Castellana, the numbers are really not very sensitive to further Euro interest rate cuts. If those cuts don't materialize, we wouldn't see any material impact on our numbers and the guidance that we have put forward. Obviously, we'll confirm tightened up guidance in mid-June, and that will largely be driven by the exchange rate.
The operational side of the business is clear, we know where those numbers are, and very pleased to forecast accelerating growth in the year ahead of at least 6% in both FFO and dividend per share. With that, it comes to the end of our presentation. Very happy to take any questions from the audience.
Thank you, Lawrence. We have a few questions from the audience. First one from Mweishö Nene at SBG Securities. He says, "You've mentioned that you're expecting better NOI for FY 2026. I assume a lot of this is driven by cost control, but what are you expecting from turnover/sales growth for FY 2026?
Sure. can I ask Itu to please handle that? It's a largely South African-focused question.
Yeah. Thanks, Laurence. Mweishö, the way that we've kind of broken down our view of the top line in the year ahead is, you know, you've got, let's say 2/3 of your portfolio that are in contract and growing at, let's say 6.3%, that will continue. We think that our reversion should track the current trade, which is, you know, 4.8% increase in trading density. We think that our reversion should get close to that level. To me, you know, that would form kinda your top line growth. In addition to that, you know, we think there's, you know, we've seen quite an increase in alternative income on the billboard side, as well as our fiber strategy.
We think that that will add to the top line. Lastly, you know, we've seen quite a bit of turnover rental come through in the past six months. We anticipate that that will continue into the year ahead. Those would be the key drivers. I think, you know, the top line sales of 4.8% that we're currently seeing, that should be where our reversion reprint should be in the next, let's say six to 12 months. You overlay the solar revenue on that. I mean, you can quite quickly see that the top line, you know, we're not just focusing on cost containment, there will be growth in the revenue side as well.
Great. Thank you.
Thanks, Itu. Next question.
Another one from Mweishö Nene. With seemingly higher interest from many parties in Iberian retail, on average, has the pricing for direct assets become too full for future transactions?
Muesho, that's a very good question. Look, I think, as I said, what we've seen is about a 100 basis points -150 basis point tightening of the yields in the last 12 months. I suppose it doesn't completely close the door on opportunities. We'll always evaluate opportunities, excuse me, relative to our cost of capital. What it does mean is that our investment approach is even more important, and I think this is what I've tried to highlight in the presentation. We're not looking to buy on market. We're looking to buy off market, where we can leverage our relationships, leverage our reputation. You know, being in the market, you know, for eight years, people know us as the most credible buyer in the market. In terms of our due diligence processes and how we get things done.
We certainly feel that there will be opportunities, but we don't see ourselves being participants in processes, where people are looking to sell, you know, and they're bringing multiple parties up front. There's first, second, thirds, and so you get squeezed on the price going forward. I think it will continue to be business as usual for us in the sense of always trying to find those pockets of value. Your question is entirely correct. The market has tightened. I think we'll call it the stock and trade deals. I think what we're always trying to do is find the angles, find sort of the opportunities where there's more value add. Really because we've got the team on the ground and we're able to sort of, you know, add value through our asset management.
We are able to sort of find assets that require work. When I say that, remember what we tend to buy are assets that are nodally dominant. They have already got strong and dominant tenants and cash flows. Where we see upside potential through further expansions, re-tenanting, you know, better marketing, et cetera, and that is sort of really what this new portfolio looks like, and that's what we're going to continue looking at, going forward. Hopefully that answers your question. Any further questions?
Yes. The next one is from Etienne Roux from Truffle. He says, "Well done on phenomenal numbers. Could you please elaborate on the Bonaire acquisition yield of 7.25% being much lower than prior deals? What is market yield for this asset? Why were you able to buy it cheaper? What is the asset management opportunity?
Great. Look, I think in many respects, you know, it's what you just said. It was an opportunistic deal. We saw an angle. I can't elaborate fully on how we were able to get to the asset, but certainly, our reputation of having dealt with Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield before, our reputation in the market meant that they knew we could close quickly with credible partners, you know, we do what we say we're gonna do. That got us the exclusivity on the asset. That deal would have closed in about three months had the floods not occurred. The delay in the transaction was really post the floods, you know, for Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield to then reinstate the asset and get it to where we are.
I think why were we able to get it? It was sort of being deeply plugged into this market, the ability to move quickly, and our reputation for closing and being a credible partner. What would that asset trade at today? I would say that from the research we're seeing, prime assets such as Bonaire probably would go at about 6.25. 6.25-6.50. I think we got an exceptional deal in that particular asset. What do we feel we're able to do? Well, there's about 10,000 square meters of buildability in the asset. I think there are some, you know, some plans we've already been discussing as to what we could do there.
I think there are some, call it non-GLA, income opportunities in the center that can maybe be exploited further, as well as some re-tenanting. Where we are very fortunate, you know, is following the floods, most of the tenants on the ground floor have upgraded their stores to some of their latest store formats. In fact, we'll be seeing that asset tomorrow on our trip. I think people are gonna be very pleasantly surprised when they see what that looks like and the quality of it. We believe that there is some very good upside potential in terms of further, asset management opportunities. Hopefully, that's covered it. Alfonso, anything else you'd add on the asset management at Bonaire?
Not much. You mentioned the 10,000 square meters, buildability that's still to be, realized and implemented. We are working now on that project to be, properly, thought and implemented. That would be the main thing to be done, as you mentioned.
Great. Thank you. Any further questions?
Yes. From Francois du Toit at Anchor Stockbrokers. He asks, 'Regarding cash-on-cash yields quoted for Portugal, are the numbers net of tax given the Portuguese assets are not in REIT?'
Can I ask Laurence Cohen, please, to take that?
Yes. Thanks, Francois. Yeah. The numbers are net of all taxes. The only taxes applicable are actually withholding taxes, which will be at 10%, and the numbers quoted are net of those withholding taxes. The withholding taxes that we eventually pay might be slightly less than 10% because of some asset management fees being charged to an external manager there that we are required to have in Portugal. I think you can assume all the yields quoted are net of any taxes, and the only taxes applicable, as I said, are where those withholding taxes at 10%.
Okay. Next question.
This one's from Suren Naidoo from Moneyweb. "What is the expected euro value of the deal yet to be finalized in Portugal? Excluding this property, what % of Vukile's assets are offshore?
Suren Naidoo, excluding the asset, 65% of the assets are offshore. I'm having a bit of a blank on the number. I think the figure is, about EUR 90 million. Laurence Cohen, is that correct?
No, it's ZAR 68 million.
Sorry. 68. Sorry. ZAR 68 million is the value of the new asset. The numbers we've quoted, Soren, the 65%, is excluding that asset and as is, we hope to close that in the next few weeks.
He has a follow-up question, saying Lawrence's book, there's not close to opportunities besides being more internally focused in the year ahead. If a deal comes up, where is it likely to be? Spain or Portugal?
I think we see them as really, one and the same market as in its Castellana. Castellana will explore opportunities in both of them. I think, you know, I wouldn't put a probability on either Spain or Portugal. We're active in both, and it really is about Castellana's growth as opposed to saying which country will we prefer, you know, over either one.
The next question is from Nick Wilson from News24. He says, you mentioned strong growth of at least 6% dividend per share and funds from operations for FY 2026. I take this as a conservative estimate from you saying at least.
Yeah. I think, Nick, you read it correctly.
Great. Next one from Chris Reddy at All Weather Capital. Any trends that you can call out for dynamics within SA apparel and food? Who is gaining versus losing market share in your malls? Are there still opportunities to further re-rejig the makeup of the malls to change the tenant mix?
Sizwe, would you please take that?
Thanks, Lawrence. Maybe let me start with the opportunity to rejig. In every, you know, any given year, we're probably working on two or three significant tenant mix, you know, re-tenanting exercises. In the year ahead, we're doing a significant re-tenanting exercise at Three Next, where we will introduce, you know, different categories, spend a bit of money fixing the mall in terms of sightlines, increasing GLA. I would say there's always a handful of those re-tenanting exercises we're doing within the portfolio. Targeted at categories that are performing, changing consumer preferences and in the year ahead, we'll continue doing that.
In terms of, you know, looking at apparel and maybe the grocery sector and seeing who's losing and potentially gaining market share, you know, I really wanna be careful around sharing too much information here. One thing that I can share is the lagger in the grocery segment that everyone's been concerned about has shown significant turnaround in the past 12 months from negative growth to, you know, significantly positive. That's been very encouraging. We're doing a lot of deals with Boxer, so I can comfortably mention that. Very nimble team, quick to do deals, takes smaller footprint, lower TI. Financially, those deals make a lot of sense. We, we, we've got a good relationship with the operations team at Boxer and we'll continue to support them.
On the apparel side, I'd say our top three fashion retailers showing strong growth in the past six months. I would say probably about the same in terms of growth. Maybe on the discount side, you're seeing, you know, slightly higher growth in terms of trading stats. Chris, that says, you know, that's a little bit that I can share. The, you know, the sentiment, the momentum, the figures that we're seeing in our top 10 retailers are all positive. There's only one concern, and, you know, that's potentially Massmart. They're working on a strategy in the next 12 months and, you know, we'll keep a close tab on that.
Another question from Nick Wilson. What is the total asset value of Brokilin now, and what could it be with the fifth Portuguese property acquisition?
I think year-end assets will probably be at around ZAR 50 billion. Obviously these numbers I'm quoting now are all excluding updated valuations because that process will sort of start in earnest now as we at year-end. We expect it to be at around ZAR 50 billion, maybe slightly above that. Again, that excludes the new Portuguese asset, which will close in the next financial year of FY 2026. As Lawrence said, that's a EUR 68 million purchase.
The next question from Peter Cromberge from Mergermarket asks, "Can you speak to Vukile's near-term debt maturity profile and any significant refinancing requirements?
Yeah. Lawrence, can you take that, please?
Yeah, certainly. The maturities coming up in the next financial year are actually very insignificant, very small. I think we've only got 2% of total group debt up for expiry in the coming 12 months. If I stand to be corrected, but I think it's just a single corporate bond of ZAR 250 million or thereabout that still needs to be refinanced. Then on top of that, we've got ZAR 1 billion of undrawn debt facilities. In fact, the amount of maturities coming up in the next 12 months is very insignificant.
Cool. Another question from Chris Reddy from All Weather Capital. Regarding your guidance for FY 2026 of minimum 6% dividend per share growth, what load-shedding assumptions are you making?
Sizwe? Yeah, I mean, we would generally, from a Vukile perspective, Chris, we, the diesel generator is probably the biggest downside on our expense base. How we communicated, generally in our portfolio, the tenants themselves have generators. We don't have a lot of common area generators. Where we have in the past, we've now centralized that to incorporate battery solutions, and that would be Maluti and also Queenstown. We, we're budgeting conservatively around diesel expenses, but in the Vukile portfolio, it's nothing more than ZAR 30 million-ZAR 35 million. It's not a significant amount that will sway the growth that we forecasted. It's not a big concern on our side.
Great. Next question from Alistair Anderson at Property Flash. He says, "In terms of Iberia, are there plans to expand deeper into Valencia after this? Or are you now dominant in this region? Also, would you look to bring in more tourism-based tenants at your malls on the coast, like cruise services, et cetera? Or stay with traditional retailers?
We, you know, we certainly are the dominant player in Valencia. There are other centers there, obviously. I think in the node in which Bonaire operates, we are the dominant player. I don't think we have any specific strategy on any region. I think we're always very opportunistic and open to what's there. Once you see the opportunity, you evaluate it in the context of the region. The other centers that we know of in the, in the area, I don't think those would be on our shopping list at any time soon. Alfonso, do you maybe wanna comment on the tourism aspect of it?
Right. Yeah. As Lawrence said, Bonaire is the dominant shopping center. Not only a shopping center, it's a retail hub. It's the largest retail hub in the province of Valencia. It's an awful dominance of it already. It also has already a component of tourism. Not the way I think you're thinking, Alistair, in terms of cruise services, because the Valencia, it's got cruises, but it's not as Barcelona. I think that we are already covering that segment of tourism and the shopping center is serving it very well. As usual, I mean, we need to serve the community that we are based on and giving our customers what they are requiring.
Thank you.
Sure.
Another question from Francois at Anchor Stockbrokers. He asks, "Can you give an indication of where you expect your LTV to be at at FY 2025?
The LTV, Francois, should be in the range of 40%-42%. Obviously, it's very much dependent on where year-end valuations come in, but we expect it to be in that range.
Thank you. A couple of questions from Etienne Roux at Truffle. He says, "Any comments on expectations for valuations at year-end?" Secondly, "Are you getting more interest from offshore investors, given the bigger Spanish portfolio in the mix?
Sure. Etienne, I think, you know, valuations, without giving you a number, because obviously it's too soon, but I think definitely we've got a strong feel on directionality. In South Africa, we'd expect to see obviously positive growth in valuations. And that should approximate at least the growth in NOI. You know, when you sort of look at the in-force escalations, you know, we'd expect to see sort of growth that approximates the NOI. An interesting question. I still don't believe that the value of our solar farm is being fully reflected in our valuations. Certainly, upward trajectory in valuations in South Africa. I think also very fair to say that in Spain, we've reached the bottom of the cycle.
We would expect to see increases in valuations from the Spanish point of view and a Portuguese point of view. You know, discussions with valuers are indicating that they probably are going to start tightening the IRRs, but they may leave the exit caps constant for the time being until they see further growth. As you sort of see, you know, more interest rate cuts, you know, coming through, and I think they will eventuate in Europe. I think that is very positive for valuations overall. As we've always said within Castellana, there is embedded value in the portfolio.
When you look at the growth in NOI and how we've kept valuations constant to slightly positive, over really a rising interest rate cycle, that shows you that when the cycle does turn and rates start coming down, we have got that embedded value in the NOI that should come through, you know, quite well. All in all, positive, trajectory in valuations in all of South Africa, Spain and Portugal.
Thank you. Another question from Francois. Can you disclose the sensitivity of the FY 2026 DIPS to the rand EUR exchange rate with reference to currency hedges?
Right. Approximately a ZAR 1 move in the exchange rate would be equal to a 1% increase in the DIPS figure. That's off the base of ZAR 1,865 that we're talking about.
Thank you. Final question from Alistair Anderson at Property Flash. The group has acquired quite a few assets locally and in Iberia recently. Does this mean there is a larger need for disposals? Or is your tail quite small now?
Alistair, I think certainly, you know, there is nothing that is flashing as an asset that needs to be sold. I think the process we go through is constantly evaluating the portfolio, looking for opportunities to winnow the portfolio and recycle into other assets. It's something that Vukile has been doing forever in South Africa. You know, in Spain, if you look at where we are now, we've sold the two office assets we had. We sold Merostir, and have recycled that into other opportunities. So we're always evaluating the portfolio to see if there are opportunities to recycle, you know, sell at a lower yield, buy at a higher yield, and create value that way. Nothing that is sort of highlighted as an immediate sale in that portfolio.
There are no more questions.
Are there any further questions?
No, that is all of them.
Fantastic. Let me just end off then by again thanking everybody for your attendance. We really appreciate it. Have a good day further, and we look forward to seeing you at results in mid-June. Take care.