Equites Property makes good on first-year promises

Specialist industrial property developer and landlord Equites Property Fund has distributed R69.9m since listing in June last year.

Specialist industrial property developer and landlord Equites Property Fund (EQU) has distributed R69.9m since listing in June last year‚ it said at its maiden results for the year to February on Thursday.

This constituted a R3.4m or 5.1% increase on its pre-listing forecast.

Equites CEO Andrea Taverna-Turisan said his team had managed to deliver on all the transactions and profits forecast for this year in the pre-listing statement.

“Our business is predicated upon consistently delivering on our under takings and exceeding expectations. We are pleased to confirm that we have achieved the above objectives in the current year‚” he said.

Equites has a focus on buying industrial warehousing and distribution properties.

Mr Taverna-Turisan said even though there were not many listed property companies that were chasing similar assets‚ the group was facing great competition from private property companies.

"Industrial property is dynamic. We believe that in the future people will buy goods using their mobile phones predominantly. Those goods will have needed to be stored somewhere and then distributed. That is the market we are in‚" he said.

He said he hoped he could grow Equites from a fund with assets worth about R1.3bn to R4bn in the next couple of years.