MAS Real Estate banks on Romania developments to drive growth BL PREMIUM 16 May 2021 - 16:17 ALISTAIR ANDERSON
Romania-focused landlord MAS Real Estate will be the JSE’s best-performing property stock for the next five years as it expands further in the East European country, says CEO Martin Slabbert.
Speaking in an interview with Business Day, he said the company’s exit from Western Europe is almost complete and it is set to grow in Romania, Eastern Europe’s second-largest economy where it is developing the best-quality residential projects the country has had since the fall of communism.
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Shopping malls were already in crisis before the Covid-19 pandemic, with the worry in the real estate industry centered around the fate and fortunes of mega malls across South Africa.
Dominant and large malls have become one of the most challenging sectors of the real estate industry in recent years. They have lost their lustre as a main source of entertainment for families and the SA economy was already in the doldrums pre-Covid-19, impacting consumer spending and retail therapy patterns.
The worry about shopping malls has intensified among industry players as there is also a step-change in the behaviour of consumers, with more people embracing online shopping and avoiding crowded malls for fear of contracting Covid-19.
A challenging macroeconomic environment
coupled with a pandemic have weighed
heavily on property fundamentals.
Once the best-performing asset
class on the JSE, listed property has undergone a significant rerating in recent years, last year posting a
negative return of 35%. The impact of Covid-19 has
forced property companies to preserve capital, reset
the earnings base through rental reversions and cost
interventions and focus on key balance sheet repair,
according to Stanlib.
Now, the sector is on the rise returning 6%to 8% to end March so far this year, says Keillen
Ndlovu, head of listed property funds at Stanlib.
Analyst sentiment too hints at the period of
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Tuesday we celebrated the show’s first birthday and having launched during hard lockdown it has been some year. To celebrate we got five of our favourite commentators and asked them a simple question: What was their top story from the past year? We got great and varied answers that really highlighted what a diverse and wild year it has been.
One of the biggest pandemic trends is working from home (WFH), resulting in huge pressure placed on listed property, especially the office rental space. Long-term nobody is exactly sure how permanent WFH will be, but I got Keillen Ndlovu, head of listed property at Stanlib, on the show to chat about this sector. It represents some 21% of total Reit exposure locally and we spoke about lease durations, vacancies and even the sale of office buildings as companies try shed exposure.
Market watchers don’t believe in the office apocalypse narrative as there are encouraging signs that life is slowly returning to normal, with more companies asking workers to return to the office. The roll-out of Covid-19 vaccines is key to getting people back to the office.