Roy Cokayne
Attacq, the property firm known previously as Atterbury Investment Holdings that listed its R12.5 billion commercial and retail property assets on the JSE in October last year, raised a further R512 million in a little over three hours yesterday.
The company announced an accelerated book build through a private placement to qualifying investors on the Stock Exchange News Service (Sens) at 9.29am yesterday. A further announcement on Sens at 12.38pm advised investors it had closed the offer.
“In light of strong demand, Attacq has placed approximately 29 million shares (the maximum allowed under its authority) at a price of R17.65 a share (a 1.6 percent discount to Attacq’s 30-day volume-weighted average price), raising an aggregate amount of R512m,” it said. “The placement was heavily oversubscribed at this level.”
Attacq said it intended using the capital raised to fund investment and acquisition opportunities currently under evaluation. The company raised R800m prior to listing through an oversubscribed private placement.
This was followed by a secondary private placement in November last year of a further R900m worth of Attacq shares at R16.10 apiece, representing a 3 percent discount to the firm’s closing price of R16.64 on the day prior to the accelerated book build.
That placement was largely taken up by institutional shareholders and grew its investor base, with Coronation Asset Management increasing its shareholding in Attacq to more than 8 percent.
Morne Wilken, the chief executive of Attacq, said this week that the company had entered the year on a high note, with its share price consistently trading around the R18 mark with strong demand and positive sentiment.
Wilken said the free float in the company’s shares, prior to the latest accelerated book build, had increased from about 40 percent after listing to about 45 percent.
He said the appeal of Attacq was underpinned by its quality property assets and developments and work at Waterfall Business Estate, one of the jewels in its portfolio.
Wilken said all the major developments in Waterfall, including the super-regional Mall of Africa, were on track and to date four large projects had been completed.
These were the 44 200m2 Cell C campus, 26 286m2 premises for MBT Technologies, 23 139m2 head office for Group Five and 6 198m2 head office for Golder and Associates.
He said seven further developments would be completed in the Waterfall Business Estate this year, as well as the 75 000m2 Newtown Junction in Johannesburg and the 55 000m2 Mall of Namibia in Windhoek.
Attacq also has exposure to sub-Saharan Africa. In November the company acquired 12.4 percent of African Land Investments for R110m, with Hyprop acquiring an 87 percent stake for R768m.
African Land Investments owns the 44 000m2 Manda Hill Mall in Lusaka, Zambia, and aims to grow its portfolio by acquiring predominantly retail properties in sub-Saharan Africa outside South Africa.
Attacq has also co-invested with the Atterbury Group and Hyprop in property investment company Atterbury Africa, which focuses on developing regional shopping centres in sub-Saharan Africa.
In October last year Attacq increased its stake in MAS Real Estate from 21 percent to 47.2 percent in line with its consolidation of its international interests in MAS.
The shares dipped 1.06 percent to close at R18.01.