Abland has been building a portfolio consisting mostly of offices in Gauteng for over a decade, and is one of SA's biggest property developers. It also controls Sable homes, one of the country's few large residential developers.
The surprise about the Pivotal launch is that Abland didn't do it sooner. It's easy to see why Pivotal Fund manager Brian Unsted expects a R4bn portfolio in the next few years when properties in the pipeline are completed. It is seeking greenfields developers and owners of existing properties to place them in the fund.
One attraction to greenfields developers will be that their property will initially be ringfenced to give them the developer/vendor benefit of the initial capital growth. The property will remain ringfenced until a particular loan to value is reached, at which point it will be incorporated into the fund and the vendor given shares in the ratio of the property's net asset value as a ratio of the overall funds.
Unsted says about R2bn of new properties will be in the fund in two years. They aim to have 55% offices and the balance retail once Pivotal reaches R4bn.
