Terrace Africa hints at REIT strategy shift

RYAN CHIGOCHE

 

Property firm Terrace Africa says it might change the strategy of its soon to be launched Tigere Real Estate Investment Fund from being only retail focused as they are being enticed by opportunities present in other sectors.

CEO Britt Abrahamse told an online meeting yesterday that they are going to change strategy in the future as they will be looking at investment opportunities in other sectors that will be performing well in the real estate sector while maintaining a retail flavour.

“I think it is our intention to keep a retail flavour within the fund but have some opportunities presenting ourselves  at the moment which are in the commercial offices  and  logistics sector. So I think while it will be weighted the majority will be retail but going forward I do see the investment strategy looking at other sectors that will be successful on the real estate side in Zimbabwe over the next few years. So logistics, commercial offices and possibly hospitality assets is something we are looking at,’’  he said.

The REIT is going to be officially listed on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange on November 23.

The fund has two properties seeded—Highland and Chinamano Corner.

Speaking at the same event property investment expert Kura Chihota described the fund as an exciting asset given the challenges in the operating environment.

“Our operating environment is a really tough one; we can’t say we sit in a normal market and have normal instruments available. The impact on human beings is that we have just under a million beneficiaries looking forward to pension funds’ performance. Those pension funds invest in a variety of assets including real estate but the current ones on offer turns out to be rather illiquid meaning you can’t get in you can’t get out,” Chihota said.

“So in this operating environment this becomes an exciting asset. We have just under a trillion of investable assets. We now have one opportunity where about ZWL$12bn are currently being made available for us to purchase. The market space is needing property assets because in the listed space we have the shrinking of available opportunities.so we now have fresh air coming in a new asset that is high quality immediately cash yielding and then has treated those major risks.”

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