Rockcastle eyes Africa for growth

Paul Morassutti, founder and President of Rockcastle Inc.

AltX-listed Rockcastle Global Real Estate (ROC)‚ which on Wednesday released results for the year to March 31‚ says it has identified a number of sites in three African countries for direct property investments.

The company said it was in the early stages of finalising these agreements.

Rockcastle‚ which has its primary listing in Mauritius and a secondary listing on AltX‚ said its portfolio continued to deliver sound returns.

The company’s primary objective is to invest in high-yielding property assets and companies that have prospects for capital appreciation.

Rockcastle’s investments comprise primarily listed real estate securities in selected developed jurisdictions including Canada‚ New Zealand‚ Australia‚ Singapore‚ France‚ the Netherlands‚ Hong Kong‚ the US and the UK.

Basic and headline earning per share for the twelve months ended March 31 were at 28.18 US cents per share‚ the company said.

Rockcastle declared a maiden interim cash dividend of 4.56 US cents per share for the nine months to December‚ which was paid on March 11. The company said it would continue to consider and declare dividends on a semi-annual basis. No dividend was declared for the three months to end March.

During the twelve-month period‚ the company successfully raised $240.8m of capital by means of various private placings that were oversubscribed‚ resulting in the number of shareholders increasing and the trading liquidity of the company’s shares improving.

As at the end of the period‚ Rockcastle’s gearing ratio was 44.5%.

“Continued uncertainty in the global macroeconomic environment has offered various investment opportunities‚ particularly in Europe and the US and the company’s portfolio continues to deliver sound returns‚” it said.

Looking ahead‚ the company said it was confident that a dividend yield of between 7% and 9% on the initial issue price of $1 per share would be achieved for the financial period ending June 30.

Rockcastle listed on the AltX in July last year.

A number of foreign property groups have chosen secondary listings on the JSE‚ as they look to take advantage of local appetite for foreign property investments.

Evan Robins‚ senior portfolio manager in MacroSolutions at Old Mutual Investment Group‚ said this week that offshore property was more attractive than South African property to many local investors. It offered investors "diversification and hard currency exposure".