The distribution comprises 35.89 cents in respect of dividends, 3.39 cents in respect of manufactured dividends and 21.85 cents in respect of other income.
Craig Hallowes of PropTrax, Africa’s first property tracker fund, points out that while there has been a correction of some 14% -- up to 21% at its peak – for the listed property sector, fantastic opportunity exists in the current market. “The blend of yield on PropTrax has moved from 6.3% historic yield and 7.2% forward yield to 7.4% historic yield and 8.4% forward yield,” notes Hallowes. “There are some great buying opportunities in real estate generally in South Africa.”
In the current direct commercial property investment market, explains Hallowes, underlying property fundamentals remain sound and solid growth prospects are underpinned through limited supply and continuing strong demand. In the listed property sector, this is an even better time to gain access to the top stocks.
Some counters in the underlying index have seen negative movements in their share prices in excess of 20% for the month of January
PropTrax is an exchange traded fund (ETF), or index tracking fund, which tracks the performance of the FTSE/JSE SAPY index (South Africa’s listed property index), listed on the main board of the JSE Limited.
PropTrax enables investors to gain investment exposure to the top 20 listed property companies which have a primary listing on the JSE Limited, as weighted by their market capitalisation. Its distribution reflects an aggregation of the distribution on the underlying counters, all of which have performed extremely favourably.
PropTrax provides investors with quarterly distributions. The first PropTrax dividend distribution incorporates the distribution of listed property leaders including Growthpoint Properties, Fountainhead Property Trust, SA Corporate Real Estate Fund, ApexHi Properties A/B/C, Redefine Income Fund, the Resilient Group, Pangbourne and Sycom Property Trust.
As some banks are accepting PropTrax units as collateral for loans it is possible to ‘gear up’ to invest in PropTrax. Furthermore PropTrax intends to introduce an investment plan for smaller investors in 2008, which will include a debit order facility.
It is the fund’s intention to grow substantially over a three-year period, with its sights set on the R1 billion mark.