There had been much interest among property companies for the assets of Rebosis Property Fund, the first black-managed and significantly black-owned REIT on the JSE that went into business rescue late last year.
The public sales process for its property assets that includes a large proportion of state-tenanted offices and other large retail centres, opened in April 6, and the closing date for interested parties to make a bid was the close of business today (April 28).
Some of the company’s super regional malls include Baywest in Gqeberha, Hemingways in East London, and Forest Hill in Centurion. The bulk of the government tenanted portfolio is in Pretoria and Johannesburg.
“Strong interest from unlisted players have so far been registered for this portfolio, which is significant, considering that office vacancies are at a 20-year high,” according to a statement from Rebosis.
Several listed and unlisted property funds had expressed interest in the retail assets, while “seasoned property entrepreneurs” specialising in the government tenanted office property class had expressed interest for the other assets.
This followed strong support for the amended Business Rescue Plan by independent creditors representing 100% of the voting interests, and some R8.7 billion in value.
The Business Rescue Practitioners and secured creditors would evaluate all expressions of interest and select preferred bidders who would be invited to progress, and who would receive access to additional information for their due diligence investigations of the sale properties.
Binding offers would be received on or before June 29, 2023.
Otis Tshabalala, CEO of Rebosis, said the public sales process had been in line with expectations.
“Rebosis has some unique and dominant shopping centres, especially in the Eastern Cape. To date, we have received interest from various listed and non-listed funds for some of the assets on the retail side.”
Phahlani Mkhombo on behalf of Genesis Corporate Solutions as Joint Business Rescue Practitioner of Rebosis, said that as part of the final adjudication process, preferred bidders could propose revisions to their binding offers following feedback from the BRPs and submit a replacement final offer before July 20, 2023, the final offer date.
BUSINESS REPORT