{"id":863755,"date":"2026-06-17T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-17T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=863755"},"modified":"2026-06-17T11:45:02","modified_gmt":"2026-06-17T09:45:02","slug":"south-african-shopping-mall-owner-worth-more-than-pick-n-pay-and-spar-heads-to-another-international-market","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/863755\/south-african-shopping-mall-owner-worth-more-than-pick-n-pay-and-spar-heads-to-another-international-market\/","title":{"rendered":"South African shopping mall owner worth more than Pick n Pay and SPAR heads to another international market"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Vukile Property Fund is making further international progress, with the group acquiring three retail assets in Italy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vukile is one of South Africa’s largest REITs. It has a R19.5 billion South African portfolio of township, rural, urban and commuter malls. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, the bulk of the group’s assets are in Iberia and housed in 99.7%-owned subsidiary Castellana Properties, where it is invested in a \u20ac2.2 billion portfolio across Spain and Portugal. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the financial year ended 31 March 2026, the group acquired a 35% stake in Pradera, a pan-European retail fund and asset manager with \u20ac5 billion of assets under management. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Using Pradera’s track record in Italy, Vukile entered the Italian market post-year-end with an inaugural \u20ac115 million portfolio of three shopping centres. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group acquired Le Due Valli in Turin, Le Centurie in Padua and Quarto Nuovo in Naples. Pradera has managed these centres for a decade and will continue to manage the portfolio’s assets. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cVukile\u00a0is replicating our proven Castellana playbook to build Esperia in Italy, where we see the potential to acquire a portfolio in excess of\u00a0\u20ac500m over time,” said Vukile CEO Laurence Rapp. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Two further acquisitions of a combined\u00a0\u20ac200 million are already lined up at an expected cash-on-cash yield of 9%.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group said that Italy offers a compelling combination of improving macro-fundamentals and a resilient consumer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Italian households hold exceptionally high net wealth and low debt, and Italian culture is renowned for its fashion, food, beverages, and experiential retail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The market has the lowest e-commerce penetration in Europe, at just 10%, and ranks second for cumulative tenant sales growth since 2019. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vukile noted that Italian shopping centres exhibit strong trading metrics and that, with limited supply, market dynamics are favourable. \u201cThese dynamics translate into an attractive investment case,” said Rapp. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We see a clear opportunity to build a specialist platform for institutional, permanent capital and unlock income growth through active management, strong tenant partnerships and a lower cost of capital.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With post-year-end acquisitions, Vukile holds R63.7 billion in assets, of which close to 70% are in Europe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vukile currently has a market cap of R36 billion. This is more than SPAR’s R10 billion, Pick’n Pay’s R15 billion, the JSE Limited’s R14 billion. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the REIT space, it is worth more than the Waterfall City owner, Attacq, at R13 billion, and the Rosebank Mall and Canal Walk owner, Hyprop, at R24 billion. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Financial results<\/h2>\n\n\n
\n
\"\"<\/a>
Quarto Nuovo in Naples<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Vukile expects continued strong operational results from its South African and Castellana portfolios. It also has numerous value-added projects planned in Spain and Portugal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As it beds down its entry to the Italian shopping centre market, Vukile’s capital allocation focus will remain on opportunities in its core markets of South Africa, Spain, Portugal and Italy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group added that every business in the broader group operates independently, with growth in one area not exerting operational pressure on the others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the financial year ended 31 March 2026, the group recorded 9.3% per-share growth in both funds from operations (FFO) and dividends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the financial year ending 31 March 2027, the group expects FFO per share growth of between 8% and 10% and dividend per share growth of 10% to 12% <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have started the new financial year firmly focused on our clearly defined strategy,” said Rapp. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said that the group has a “more robust, more diversified retail portfolio, even deeper specialist retail expertise and a pipeline of value-enhancing opportunities to pursue.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Financial performance<\/strong><\/td>31 MARCH 2026<\/strong><\/td>31 March 2025<\/strong><\/td>% change<\/strong><\/td><\/tr><\/thead>
Gross property revenue (Rm)<\/strong><\/td>5 837<\/td>4 396<\/td>32.8<\/td><\/tr>
Operating profit before finance costs (Rm)<\/strong><\/td>3 575<\/td>3 257<\/td>9.8<\/td><\/tr>
Profit for the year attributable to owners (Rm)<\/strong><\/td>5 742<\/td>3 209<\/td>78.9<\/td><\/tr>
Basic earnings per share (cents)<\/strong><\/td>441.85<\/td>270.71<\/td>63.2<\/td><\/tr>
Headline earnings per share (cents)<\/strong><\/td>179.54<\/td>158.59<\/td>13.2<\/td><\/tr>
Net asset value (R per share)<\/strong><\/td>25.03<\/td>22.39<\/td>11.8<\/td><\/tr>
Direct property investments (Rm)<\/strong><\/td>58 330<\/td>50 270<\/td>16.0<\/td><\/tr>
Total dividend per share (cents)<\/strong><\/td>143.97084<\/td>131.71858<\/td>9.3<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Building on its success in Span and Portugal, Vukile Property Fund has dipped its toe into the Italian market. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":863769,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[4067,9838,20473],"class_list":["post-863755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-pick-n-pay","tag-spar","tag-vukile"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/863755","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/95"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=863755"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/863755\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":863783,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/863755\/revisions\/863783"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/863769"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=863755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=863755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=863755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}