RMH narrows its loss despite macroeconomic challenges

RMH said yesterday that it had managed to improve its loss by 89 percent for the nine months to the end of March, despite facing the macro-economic challenges caused by the Covid-19 outbreak. Picture: Karen Sandison/African News Agency (ANA)

RMH said yesterday that it had managed to improve its loss by 89 percent for the nine months to the end of March, despite facing the macro-economic challenges caused by the Covid-19 outbreak. Picture: Karen Sandison/African News Agency (ANA)

Published Jun 30, 2021

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RMH said yesterday that it had managed to improve its loss by 89 percent for the nine months to the end of March, despite facing the macro-economic challenges caused by the Covid-19 outbreak.

The group’s headline loss from continuing operations improved to R30 million for the nine months compared to the R262m loss reported in the same period last year.

RMH was left with its property portfolio after the unbundling of its 34 percent stake in financial services group FirstRand in 2020.

The investment holding company, through its RMH Property, currently holds a 27.5 percent stake in Atterbury, 37.5 percent in Atterbury Europe, 20.3 percent in Divercity and various holdings in Integer Properties.

RMH, through RMH Property, said it had invested in a sizeable investment portfolio of property entities with exposure to South Africa, Namibia, Mauritius, Serbia, Romania and Cyprus.

“RMH Property partners work closely with its portfolio companies to ensure disciplined capital allocation and to guide, support and challenge them to deliver on their investment and development pipelines, enhance net asset value and produce sustainable earnings,” the group said.

However, RMH Property’s gross value period-on-period decreased by 6 percent to R2.58 billion, down from R2.76bn compared to last year, mainly driven by a stronger rand against the euro during the period.

Its group revenue from continuing operations improved by more than 100 percent to R38m compared to a loss of R111m and headline loss a share from continuing operations improved by 80 percent to a loss of 2.1 cents a share compared to a loss of 18.6c while loss a share from continuing operations was bettered by 89 percent to a loss of 5.1c compared to a loss of 25.9c reported a year earlier.

The group’s net asset value declined by 7 percent to R4.62bn compared to R4.96bn reported a year earlier.

The nine months performance comes after RMH also reported an improvement in its half-year results in which it cut its losses by 74 percent for the six months to end December 2020.

Looking ahead, RMH said that all the countries where RMH Property had a presence were at various stages of their vaccine roll-outs.

“As anticipated, the vaccine roll-outs in South Africa and emerging markets are slower than that of the developed markets.

“Economic recovery in the medium term will be directly linked to the pace of the vaccine roll-out,” the group said.

RMB Holdings shares closed 1.40 percent lower at R1.41 on the JSE yesterday.

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