Johannesburg - Acsion, the listed specialist commercial and residential property developer and owner, is making progress with its R1.98 billion development pipeline and pursuing potential opportunities in Africa and central and eastern Europe.
Acsion was listed on the JSE in December and has a developed investment property portfolio of R3.75bn. Its current development pipeline, comprising six developments, is expected to be completed by April 2018.
Pieter Scholtz, the chief financial officer of Acsion, said yesterday that the R1.2bn 20-storey mixed-use Acsiopolis development in Benmore in Sandton was the biggest project in the development pipeline.
Construction on the 70 000m2 development on a 1 hectare site on Benmore Drive has commenced and it is expected to be completed in April 2018.
About 61 000m2 of the development rights have been earmarked for residential, with about 35 000m2 for executive apartments, 26 000m2 for short-term rental units, 5 000m2 for retail and 1 000m2 for offices.
Acsiopolis will also provide six levels of parking, which equates to about 1 500 underground parking bays.
The remainder of Acsion’s current development pipeline comprises the R110 million first phase of Mall@Moutsiya, comprising 13 500m2 of retail and a 1 500m2 petrol station in Walkraal in Limpopo; the R135m first phase of Mall@55, a 15 000m2 convenience shopping centre in Monavoni in Gauteng; the R57m first phase of Trade 55, a 10 000m2 retail project in Monavoni in Gauteng; the Hyde Park Terrace cluster residential development in Johannesburg; the Mamahlodi Gardens affordable housing development in Walkraal in Limpopo; and the R140m Mall@Mfula, a 17 300m2 shopping centre in Piet Retief.
Prospective deals
Acsion will also be developing the fifth phase of the Mall@Carnival, but this project does not yet form part of its current development pipeline.
It is also exploring three further development opportunities. They are the Mall@Frankfort in the Free State, the 50 000m2 Mall@Maputo in Mozambique and Offices@Lusaka in Zambia.
Scholtz said these projects would add almost R900m to Ascion’s development pipeline once they were finalised.
He said Acsion had already walked away from two potential opportunities in central and eastern Europe and did not have any specific timeline to conclude any transaction in the region.
“It must be a deal that makes sense, which will give Acsion a mix between hard and soft currencies and a rand hedge,” he said.
Kiriakos Anastasiadis, the founder and chief executive of Acsion, said the opportunities in the rest of Africa and Europe being evaluated had to be able to deliver a first-year development yield of between 15 percent and 20 percent.
Scholtz said Acsion preferred greenfield opportunities because this was the company’s strength, but it would also consider a combination of greenfield development opportunities and existing properties.
He said Acsion also had a preference for retail because that was where its expertise lay.
In its maiden interim results, Acsion reported group revenue of R215.4m in the six months to August compared with R55.9m in the three months to February.
Acsion focuses on delivering superior net asset value growth, which increased 2.3 percent to 10.42c a share for the six months.
Net profit after tax of R96m was achieved compared with R40.8m in the quarter to February.
This equated to basic and diluted weighted earnings a share of 24.31c and weighted headline earnings a share of 24.18c for the reporting period.
Its debt at the end of August totalled R220m, equal to a low loan-to-value ratio of 5.74 percent.
Anastasiadis said he was satisfied with the performance of the portfolio overall considering the tough trading environment.
Shares in Acsion were unchanged on the JSE yesterday, closing at R9.30.
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