Tower Property Fund expands portfolio with first offshore acquisition

Tower Property Fund reports a 42% increase in distributable earnings for the year to May 2015 as its portfolio grew strongly and the fund makes its first offshore acquisition.

Western Cape-based diversified Tower Property Fund (TWR) on Wednesday reported a 42% increase in distributable earnings for the year to May 2015 as its portfolio grew strongly and the fund made its first offshore acquisition.

Tower intends to be an investment for people seeking returns from a fund holding a mix of properties.

Revenue for the year increased 30% to R248m and operating profit by 24% to R201m. A total distribution of 86.8c per share has been declared‚ an increase of 16% on the previous year.

Tower’s portfolio has been expanded to 48 commercial‚ industrial and retail properties‚ with the value increasing by 88% to R3.8bn at the end of July 2015.

CEO Marc Edwards said the fund’s acquisition strategy had been rolled out with careful timing in mind.

“Our investment strategy is to expand the portfolio by targeting well located‚ medium-sized properties with strong cash flows and to ensure a diversified sectoral and geographic portfolio‚” he said.

Fourteen properties were acquired during the past year. These included sections of the well-known Sunclare office block in Claremont‚ three Shoprite-anchored shopping centres in Gauteng‚ the Medscheme head office in Florida Glen and a portfolio of eight industrial properties in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal.

Since the year-end Tower has bought a further four properties valued at R730m. These include the fund’s first offshore acquisition in Zagreb‚ Croatia‚ where it purchased 15 floors of the premium grade VMD KVART office property for EUR23.7m.