CAPE TOWN - TRANSCEND Residential Property Fund, the specialised residential rental real estate investment trust (Reit), lifted its final dividend 25 percent to 43.65 cents per share in the year to December 31, 2020, as its defensiveness came to the fore in the trying economic environment.
The final dividend, paid out at a ratio of 100 percent of the distribution, will be paid from distributable income. Many other JSE-listed Reit’s have either made sharply lower distributions for 2020, due to the devastating impact and uncertainty of Covid-19 on commercial property markets, particularly in the retail space.
Transcend, for example, also paid only 40 percent of its interim distribution. The full-year dividend for the group, which owns a R2.1 billion property portfolio comprising more than 4 700 units in South Africa’s major urban areas, came to 55.75c per share, 14.4 percent lower than the 65.14c paid out for the full 2019 financial year.
Net asset value was up 4.66 percent to R8.87. Revenue was 3.3 percent lower at R324.80 million, while operating profit was up 12.93 percent to R178.77m. The portfolio occupancy stood at 91.70 percent at December 31, while the occupancy for the full reporting period was 93.36 percent. Portfolio arrears stood at 2.83 percent, while rental collections by year-end were at 94.39 percent.
The company migrated to the main board of the JSE in February last year. Transcend’s thinly traded shares close unchanged at R5 on the JSE yesterday, down from R7 a year ago.
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