Tower Property Fund sets sights on property purchases
JSE-Listed Tower Property Fund said on Tuesday that it had bought the DeVille Shopping Centre in Durbanville for R226 million, which becomes the second biggest asset for the property group.
Located on the corner of Wellington and Durban Roads, DeVille consists of 2 500m2 of office space and 13 500 m2 of retail space – with Pick ‘n Pay, Clicks and Virgin Active as the anchor tenants.
Tower Property Fund CEO Marc Edwards says the A grade retail property was refurbished three years ago and the anchor food retailer has been reporting positive turnover growth.
The Property find recently acquired Clifton Place, an office property in a busy commercial node of Berea in Kwazulu Natal at cost price of R80.5 million.
Tower listed on the JSE in July 2013 and has grown from R1.65 billion to R2 billion – a 20% growth in the portfolio in just over 7 months. Management are confident of ongoing growth with a strong pipeline of industrial, retail and office properties.
“This pipeline of properties is coming from the private sector where landlords are prepared to take a percentage of Tower shares as currency for the transaction,” concludes Edwards.
Tower was assembled by Cape-based Spire Property Group, founded in 1999 by industry veterans Bruce Kerswill and Rodney Squire-Howe. The duo was previously involved in the listing of Paramount Property Fund on the JSE in 2001.
Renowned value investor Allan Gray bought a 24,6% stake in Tower late last year. Grindrod Asset Management has also been punting the stock.