Pretoria - Schroder European Real Estate Investment Trust (Sereit) has raised about £15 million (R256m) from a placement of new ordinary shares.
The company, which listed on the London Stock Exchange and JSE in December, said commitments were received for 12.5 million new ordinary shares at a price of 120 pence a share.
The new shares represented about 10.3 percent of the issued ordinary shares capital of the company prior to the placing.
Explaining the rationale for the capital raise, Sereit said it had, since the initial public offering in December, fully deployed the total R2.3â billion equity raised into income producing commercial real estate assets located in strategically identified growth cities in continental Europe.
Sereit said its current near-term investment pipeline was about £150m compared with cash currently available for investment of about £45m.
The company has to date acquired seven assets located in large, liquid and mature markets. Its portfolio was independently valued last month at £148.2m.
Julian Berney, chairman, said the capital raised together with the existing available cash and the use of moderate leverage, continued to position the company well. Shares rose 0.59 percent to close at R20.42 on the JSE on Monday.
BUSINESS REPORT