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The first Ghost Stories podcast in 2026 opens the door to global property investments with Satrix. In this lively and insightful discussion with Lauren Jacobs, Senior Portfolio Manager at Satrix, you’ll learn about how Satrix is broadening the range of property investment opportunities for investors.

Aside from a discussion on the various property strategies followed by investors (ranging from buy-to-let through to owning REITs and associated ETFs), this podcast gives you details on the existing suite of property ETFs and unit trusts offered by Satrix. This includes the Satrix Property ETF (JSE: STXPRO) that Ghost loves owning in his tax-free savings account.

And of course, there was much focus placed on the new ETF in the stable: the Satrix Global Property ETF (JSE: STXGLP). With rand-denominated exposure to offshore property, this ETF brings property asset classes that you won’t find anywhere else on the JSE (like senior housing and data centre funds).

Get ready to learn about how to broaden and diversify your equity exposure in property. 

This podcast was first published here.

Disclaimer:

Satrix Investments (Pty) Ltd & Satrix Managers (RF) (Pty) Ltd is an authorised financial services provider. The information does not constitute advice as contemplated in FAIS. Use or rely on this information at your own risk. Consult your Financial Adviser before making an investment decision. While every effort has been made to ensure the reasonableness and accuracy of the information contained in this document (“the information”), the FSP’s, its shareholders, subsidiaries, clients, agents, officers and employees do not make any representations or warranties regarding the accuracy or suitability of the information and shall not be held responsible and disclaims all liability for any loss, liability and damage whatsoever suffered as a result of or which may be attributable, directly or indirectly, to any use of or reliance upon the information. For more information, visit https://satrix.co.za/products

Full Transcript:

The Finance Ghost: Welcome to 2026. It’s a new year, and it’s another fantastic year of podcasts right here on Ghost Mail with your host, The Finance Ghost. I’m so looking forward to that, of course, and it’s another year with Satrix. I’m so happy to have you guys back. 

I mean, this is year…I want to say three? It might even be four at this stage, I’m actually not sure. I think it’s three. It’s really been a fantastic journey with the Satrix team. Just understanding ETFs, but also getting to know the team and the nuts and bolts of how these things work, the investment ideas that come through.

And of course, to end off 2025, there was a wonderful discussion with René Basson, where we talked about the 25 years to get to this point. Highly recommend you go back and listen to that if you want to give yourself some context as to just how amazing this journey was, to get to these ETFs that we now just take for granted. 

We just take for granted the fact that you can own the market with just a single investment every month, for example. It really is quite amazing, and it’s quite a journey. 

Today, we will be talking about a new product that’s coming out from Satrix, so that’s going to be quite exciting because the team is always innovating, they’re always bringing new stuff to the fore. 

To do that, we have Lauren Jacobs. She is a Senior Portfolio Manager at Satrix. She is also no stranger to the Ghost Stories podcast. Lauren, you’ve done a couple of these now – I think you’ve done two – so, welcome to the podcast. Happy New Year, and thanks for doing this with me.

Lauren Jacobs: And Happy New Year to you, Ghost. Thanks for having me again, and all the best for 2026. It’s been an interesting time up until 2025, but yeah, onwards and upwards for the new year.

The Finance Ghost: Yeah, absolutely. It’s going to be quite a year. It’s gotten off to quite a start from a geopolitical perspective, so it’s not going to be boring, I think. That much we know for sure. 

But what we’re talking about today is not geopolitics. We are talking about property. And actually, what makes that so interesting is that property sits somewhere between your sort of traditional equity exposure and then your debt exposure. So, quite an interesting place in a portfolio. 

But before we even get to that, I think property remains an asset class that people are just very drawn to. It’s a very contentious issue, the cost of property. Because, of course, it directly affects your cost of living. 

I think the conventional wisdom, from our parents’ generation especially, is to own the house you live in and then, as soon as you can, go and buy an apartment and rent it out. The classic advice was, “Well, buy your first apartment and then, when you’re ready to move on, you can rent that one out. Then you buy the next place.” 

This was kind of the dream that many of our parents put onto us – with the best intentions, I think. Unfortunately, that hasn’t necessarily worked out super well in South Africa, depending on where you bought. Just the reality, unfortunately. 

So, I don’t do any of those things. I, at this stage, don’t own the house I live in. I certainly don’t have any investment properties. I prefer to have listed property stocks. 

But before we dig into the ETF, I was curious where you fall on that spectrum, Lauren, in terms of your approach to property and how you think about it. Do you prefer the listed stuff or a bit of bricks and mortar and the admin that comes with it?

Lauren Jacobs: I’m in the bucket where I fall into all three – we own a home, we own a rental property, and we own property stocks. So, it’s a very interesting time just in terms of how things are shaping up around property (not only in South Africa, but also around the world). 

But for us – for me – I think I’m more of a conservative investor. I like to know my house is going to be my house forever, but maybe it’s just because I’m a little bit older. I still subscribe to that kind of thought. And also, unintentionally, the investment property came up. 

But again, like you said – the admin around it and the taxes. People don’t understand that when they go into buying a property – the transfer duty, then if it’s your own property, there might be a capital gains tax. And the constant cost of a property if something goes wrong (and there’s always something going wrong).

You need to make provision to have cash available for that. To fix whatever’s gone wrong, or for your levies and your taxes and so on. I think when you saw your parents, they had a property, and you just lived on the property. You didn’t know all of those costs that came with it. 

So, that’s just something – if you are buying a bricks-and-mortar property or even an investment property – to keep in mind. Just around how many costs are included in the lifespan of that property. 

And then again, in the olden days, your parents were like, “Oh, but I’m keeping it for you, and you’re going to get this when I die.” But then there’s also that estate duty tax at the end that you’re not aware of, so there’s a lot of hidden costs around that. 

Yes, there is the security of knowing it’s mine, I can go home every day. But yeah, it’s just – there’s always that double-edged sword around having that, but also the implied cost of it. It’s an interesting ride, and that’s my view on it.

The Finance Ghost: Yeah, I like that. Thank you. So, I guess where I am on the spectrum is I would, at some point, probably have what I would call our ‘forever home’. But that’s more around stability for family and children and proximity to schools. Because the rental market can sometimes be very cruel around timing and what’s available at the time you need to move. It’s not a financial decision, definitely not.

And I quite enjoyed your comment around how you take for granted the costs your parents might have had. I’ve experienced that now. So, the place we’re in now has a swimming pool. It’s the first time I’ve been responsible for a swimming pool. Young kids love it, obviously, but I think back and I’m like, “Wow, my parents went through a lot to make this thing work.” It costs you money all the time. 

I grew up in Joburg, where the weather’s good a lot, so we used it all the time. Down in Cape Town, it’s like every few days, depending on how windy your suburb is. But anyway, this is just adulting of course.

The one thing I personally won’t do is have an investment property, just because of the admin you talk about. Because it’s not passive income. People think it’s passive income. I’ll tell you what is passive income: owning a property ETF. Because out there are a whole bunch of professional people sending rental invoices, kicking people out who don’t pay, getting new tenants in, getting the leases done. That is passive income. 

So, I’m a big fan of having property exposure in my equity portfolio primarily. It’s a very good inflation hedge. It also (I like to think) gives me a little bit of a hedge against residential property prices absolutely running away while I’m not actually a residential property owner. Because chances are very, very good that if residential property is cooking in South Africa, the best shopping centres, the best industrial properties, and maybe even offices are probably also actually doing kind of well. 

So, there’s a pretty decent hedge there. At least, I like to think. Hopefully, that will work out for me. I guess time will tell.

And of course, you can have this property exposure in your tax-free savings account, which is fantastic. So, we’ll talk about that as well.

But maybe let’s talk about some of Satrix’s existing products in the space, and then we’ll get to the new stuff. And the property sector on the JSE really is vibrant. It’s super active. It’s actually one of the sectors where historically we’ve had the most listings as opposed to delistings. There’s tons of capital raising all the time, and it’s because institutional investors are big supporters of the property sector. 

And so, billions of rands (literally billions) flow into these companies, and they can go and deploy it into properties. So, very, very interesting space. Of course, that means that there’s an index for it. Satrix tracks the index. So, maybe we could just start there. 

You could give us a quick overview of some of Satrix’s existing property products that investors might already be familiar with. As I said, it’s something I already have in my tax-free savings account, so I get that beautiful REIT dividend without any tax whatsoever, which is fun.

So yeah, give us the lay of the land, literally, in terms of the current Satrix offering around property.

Lauren Jacobs: So, in the local property space, currently Satrix has two offerings – one on the ETF side and one in unit trust form.

On the ETF side, that property ETF tracks the S&P SA Property Capped Index. That’s a little bit different to the way the JSE does it. They’ve obviously got a broader composite that they choose the property stocks from – not maybe a JSE All Share, it’s kind of a different broad-market index that they start from. 

So, what you’ll find is that there’ll be some stocks in there that are not maybe specifically in the SAPY (the SA Listed Property Index, the FTSE/JSE one) or the weightings will be different. 

It’s also got a capping factor, so the stocks are capped at 10% at each quarterly index review, and so, although it will move in line with the property sector because of some of the weightings of the underlying constituents, you won’t get the same as you would in the SAPY. 

And of course, in the SAPY, the number of constituents there is capped at 20. Only 20 constituents in the SAPY, and that one also does a quarterly review. 

So, on the unit trust side, we’ve got the SAPY – where we’re tracking the SAPY in the unit trust – and then on the ETF side, we’re tracking the S&P SA Property Capped Index. 

Again, we’ll move sort of in line with the property sector, but you will find the differences just in terms of the underlying constituents and how those constituents move. For example, in the ETF, we have Hammerson (JSE: HMN) at 3%, whereas it’s not in SAPY. So, there you’ll get a difference in returns, depending on what that constituent does.

The Finance Ghost: Yeah, that’s interesting, and that’s why the fact sheets are obviously so important. You actually need to go in and just see exactly what is being tracked. What’s actually in there, what you are getting. And go and check out those weightings as well, because that makes a big difference. 

And of course, the other thing in the property sector, specifically in South Africa, is a lot of these funds have offshore exposure. So, it’s all good and well to say, “Well, I love the South African property story and I’m trying to maybe hedge against residential property going up, etcetera, etcetera.” 

But if all of your money is sitting in a fund (and this is not something that would happen in an ETF), but if you go single stocks and you go and buy a fund that is focused on Poland, that’s not going to hedge you against South Africa in any way, shape or form. It’s just not going to.

So, that’s rather interesting and certainly something to take into account. And it’s the old story, right, Lauren? Go and read the fact sheet, go and understand what it is that you are actually buying, because that is the only way to do it when it comes to ETFs. Go and do the research. It’s the old cliche, right?

Lauren Jacobs: Correct. And again, ETFs (or at least, index-tracking ETFs) are quite transparent. All the information is there. The constituents are on the website every day. 

So you almost don’t have an excuse to say, “Oh, I didn’t know that was what I was tracking.” All the information is there for investors to find.

The Finance Ghost: Stuff like the capping really does make a big difference. So, genuinely go and have a look. There’s always a sort of ‘Top 10 Constituents’ list that shows you a lot of information in these fact sheets. 

Don’t think that just because you’re buying ETFs, you don’t have to do research. You do have to do research. It’s just different research to how you would do a single stock, for example, and it is also much easier. ETF research is much simpler than going and digging into all these companies, definitely.

So, having set the scene of the excellent current offering and a couple of the options there for different kinds of investors – in December, Satrix capped off the year by talking about a global property feeder ETF. Very interesting. That will be under the code STXGLP.

This now delivers international property opportunities to investors looking for further diversification. So again, if you’re trying to hedge residential property in Cape Town, this one is not going to do it. But it will bring some excellent other exposure into your portfolio – some offshore exposure property specifically, obviously. 

But before we even get into the details of the actual fund, this word ‘feeder’ – can you tell us (because I know you’re super involved in the operational side of the ETFs, we’ve done a show on that before) what a feeder ETF is, for those who have seen this term before and always wondered what that is?

Lauren Jacobs: So, if we take a step back and just think about global indices, for example. Your MSCI World, your S&P 500 – there are hundreds (and then in the MSCI World, thousands) of stocks in those indices. 

As a local index-tracking house, it isn’t viable for us to now go and buy every single stock in that index and hold it and rebalance it every quarter. The cost, first of all, will be high. And secondly, sometimes we can’t get all the markets, or there’s the currency efficiencies that we wouldn’t be able to get. 

So what a feeder structure does is it says instead of us going to hold every single stock underlying, we find a global ETF (or foreign ETF, whichever one you want to call it). Maybe it’s in the iShare range, maybe it’s in one of the other index provider ranges, and we go and just buy that ETF.

So, there’s only one holding in a feeder fund structure, and that holding is holding this ‘master fund’ or this larger, main parent fund – the wording’s interchangeable, but it’s one fund that we are holding, and that fund is then tracking the index. 

So, we would get a return of the fund, which is in turn tracking the index underlying. And that also reduces the cost, because now we’re only holding one instrument. We’re not having to go and trade all of these underlying stocks. 

It’s just an efficiency in terms of how we can give global exposure, but in rands. So, we buy the underlying in whatever currency it is, but we offer it to investors in rands. And that is really efficient, in terms of currency, in terms of pricing for the end investor.

The Finance Ghost: Yeah, it’s super interesting. And that’s exactly the point, right? It’s a currency efficiency. So technically speaking, someone could go and buy this ETF overseas with their offshore money. 

So, if you’ve already taken money out of South Africa (you’ve got, I don’t know, a dollar-based brokerage account or whatever it is), you can go and buy this ETF right now.

Lauren Jacobs: That’s correct, yes.

The Finance Ghost: You can do it. But with the Satrix product, you can now do it without having to first take your money into dollars, for example. So that helps, because every time you’re going into dollars, there are inevitably some pretty ugly fees around switching currency. That bid-offer spread gets pretty wide.

And also, you’re using up your allowance. So, that’s more of a consideration for big investors who… I mean, this is the lifelong dream for many of us, right? May I please get to the point where I feel irritated about only taking, what is it, R11 million out of the country every year?

Lauren Jacobs: Exactly [laughing].

The Finance Ghost: Like, “Oh no, today in first world problems.” But jokes aside, the currency, the bid-offer spread – that’s a big one.

And now, just the ability to see it on your rand-based brokerage account – because the reality is most South Africans, much as they like to complain (well, actually these days we complain a lot less – the rand is looking good, things are looking much better, you go back to the depths of load shedding and no one wanted anything to do with the JSE), even then, familiarity bias kicks in. South Africans just love seeing things quoted in rand, things on the JSE. 

I see it with my own work – if I write about a South African stock versus a global stock, there’s no competition here around what people are more interested in. So, these are all of the factors that come in, right? Just making it easier for people to actually get access to the stuff.

Lauren Jacobs: And it’s a huge plus to be able to use your rands to buy an offshore investment. Who wouldn’t want to do that? And also with Satrix, the way we offer it, you can do it on a monthly basis with a debit order. Who would have thought that you can get offshore exposure?

And also, if we go back to our conversation around your bricks and mortar – your house, your investment property – a lot of our assets sit locally, and we want to diversify and improve our exposure. And here you can improve that, but still using your rands. So, it’s a great concept for us to be able to offer this to investors.

On the flip side, though, we must also be aware. Like you mentioned, the rand is doing really well at the moment, but there’s always that currency risk in terms of offering it to you in rands, even though the underlying investment is in dollars or euros. That’s another thing that investors must really be aware of. 

You might see, “Oh, the S&P did 10%,” but you must think, “Okay, is that in dollars or in rands?” If I now look at the Satrix S&P 500, which is rand-denominated, and that did maybe 5%, you must remember that the rand strengthened. 

So, it’s just something to be aware of. That currency risk is there, and also to be conscious that you can’t just say, “Oh, but Satrix is underperforming because the S&P is doing this.” Also just remember – in what currency is it performing?

The Finance Ghost: Yeah, absolutely. And this is the thing with offshore, right? You’ve got to have a currency decision, and then you’ve got to decide where your money is going, because you want to take the rands out of the country when the rand is strong.

Unfortunately, it’s just human nature. People panic at the worst time for them to panic. It’s always when the rand is like flirting with R20 to the dollar that everyone is taking their money offshore. 

Like, “Oh no, this thing is going to R30. It’s over, it’s done. We are Zimbabwe. Oh my goodness!” And the money’s gone. 

And then it comes back down to like R18, and now that wonderful advisor who told you that we are basically going to become a basket case is gone. They’re nowhere to be found, you know. They’ve made their money. 

Lauren Jacobs: Exactly.

The Finance Ghost: So, yeah, this is the thing. When the rand is doing really well like this, it’s the time to think, “Okay, what international exposure would I like to pick up?” 

Because the rand had a fantastic year. Look, I think it might have another pretty decent year, but we’ll see what happens. It’s off to a very good start…

Lauren Jacobs: It really is, yeah.

The Finance Ghost: …and in the last few weeks, it really has been quite something to watch! 

[both laugh]

The Finance Ghost: So, yeah. This is the benefit of diversification. There’s no way to call these things on an individual basis. And you certainly shouldn’t be holding one investment so that you sit there and cry yourself to sleep over, you know, “Oh no, the rand strengthened!” 

Then you’re doing it wrong. Then your portfolio is not being managed as a portfolio. 

Lauren Jacobs: Definitely.

The Finance Ghost: So, these things are considerations – currency, etcetera. But they should always be seen in the context of the broader portfolio. 

Lauren Jacobs: Exactly.

The Finance Ghost: So, speaking of ‘broader portfolio’ and these exposures, let’s talk about the types of properties you’ll actually find in here. 

Because, as South Africans, when we look at REITs, we are very accustomed to big shopping centres (that’s always in there), logistics properties these days (so that’s big warehouses, etcetera, etcetera, and also small ones, actually), and then offices. 

Offices, people try not to talk about too much, because that’s still a little bit of a mess. Lots of offices got converted to residential. Vacancies are still not great, negative reversions are still a problem. 

And we have a sprinkling of specialist funds in South Africa, but we’re very light on specialist property funds in South Africa. There are like a couple, literally. Stor-Age is a very good example (which is, as their name suggests, storage). 

But offshore, it’s different. There are lots of specialists, right? So, how much of that comes through in this ETF?

Lauren Jacobs: So, it’s such an interesting sector, this global property sector, because things are changing every day for us. Like you say, moving from that bricks and mortar (office blocks, retail malls) to where, in developed markets, the universe includes so many different properties.

And when I talk about that, it’s from your traditional bricks to digital infrastructure. So, for example, data centres fall within these properties now. 

These are the backbone of cloud computing, and AI, and digital services. They house the servers and the network equipment for these large tech companies. I mean, who would have thought, “One day, that’s a property stock”?

Healthcare facilities, those are also now being rented out – senior housing, hospitals, medical offices. We’ve got this ageing population, and we’re outsourcing this healthcare infrastructure. It’s a huge global property play.

And then again, another sector that we look at here is the telecom towers and speciality REITS that we spoke about. These towers are now also being constructed and seen as property, and this is supporting mobile connectivity and digital transformation around the world.

So, it’s a very interesting time. It offers such huge diversification from what we’re seeing in South Africa and what’s offered in South Africa. And it looks at the structural growth of domestic economies and what is going to be required in the future – from property, from what is available to investors in terms of property.

The Finance Ghost: The reason why a lot of these funds and these specialist funds have been spun out of traditional industries – you spoke about stuff like telecom towers, that’s a really good example – is because property is just a very different asset to the operations of a business, and it attracts a very different kind of investor. 

So, if you split out the operations of a business from something like its infrastructure, then you can actually reduce the cost of funding for the entire group. Because suddenly, infrastructure investors who see their particular assets as lower risk jump in and say, “Okay, we’re prepared to fund the towers at a lower cost of capital than the actual operations of the tenant of those towers.” 

Now, I’ve always wondered about that, to be honest, because in specialist funds, is the risk really so different? At the end of the day, what happens if that telco goes under? It’s not like another one is going to jump in and immediately pick up all those leases. 

Lauren Jacobs: Exactly.

The Finance Ghost: So obviously, the more specialised the properties, the riskier it is. But there’s an entire industry of people who have dedicated their careers to quantifying that risk and actually taking a view on capital. 

And obviously, CFOs of these groups then say, “Well, how do we optimise our cost of capital? Let’s try to get different investors in. Let’s split out the properties from the operations, etcetera.” And there are still a lot of big corporates that have massive property portfolios sitting on their balance sheet that they haven’t actually split out or done anything with. 

One of the really interesting local examples is actually Shoprite. They have a massive property holding. There’ve been many calls over the years for them to actually split that out and separately list as a REIT, bring down their cost of capital, but it’s not something that they’ve done. 

And I guess the corporate consideration there is you’ve got to wonder about loss of control of your properties, etcetera. And all of those decisions in boardrooms around the world eventually lead to the creation of these property funds, which then land in an index like this. So, some very interesting stuff. 

And, as you’ve mentioned, there are some real growth areas like data centres, etcetera. Lots of debate around: Are there too many data centres at the moment? Are there not enough? 

But this is the joy of investing, right? Risk and reward. You’ve got to figure these things out for yourself, right?

Lauren Jacobs: Yes. I think the change in the way business does business is consistent, and that’s also something we want to see going forward – the digital transformation. You want to see that businesses are being mindful of that. 

And, like you said, taking your property out of your business and finding different ways to essentially leverage what you can out of those properties. We’re seeing that globally now, so it’s a good direction we’re going in. 

And I think, because it’s been in businesses before, a lot of them are now spinning it off and out of their business. It’s not that it’s a new thing, so there is some trust there, and some history there that we can look at and say, “Okay, yes. This is a good thing, going forward.”

The Finance Ghost: The other nuance here is the tax, and we should definitely talk about that, because the tax in this particular fund is quite interesting. There’s a withholding tax benefit in the way that the fund is structured. 

So I guess, as simply as possible for investors – let’s call it individual investors specifically, who are sitting there going, “Okay, that’s cool, that’s interesting. What’s in it for me from a tax perspective, versus going and investing in the local ETF?” 

What does the tax benefit really mean for investors in the ETF, and how do they see it coming through? Is this something that just comes through in the return of the ETF itself? Does the tax happen layers up, and you just see it in your return? How does that actually work?

Lauren Jacobs: So, as we spoke about earlier, this is a feeder fund. The feeder structure calls for us holding a specific underlying foreign ETF, and the one that we have invested in is the HSBC FTSE EPRA NAREIT Developed UCITS ETF.

So a UCITS ETF is a specific legal structure. It’s seen in Ireland as like a CIS in South Africa; it’s very similar to that. But in the same breath, that fund is Irish-domiciled – that means that HSBC has set up a company in Ireland, and the fund itself is Irish-domiciled. 

The compelling thing about that is that there’s a double taxation treaty between Ireland and the US. What that means is that an Irish-domiciled fund will not pay the full dividends withholding tax on US equities.

And as we spoke about, listed property is like an equity, right? So, what happens with this double taxation treaty is that these Irish-domiciled funds only pay 15% withholding tax on US stocks, not the 30%. And the fund, or let’s say the index itself, 62% of that index sits in US stocks.

So if you think about it, on 62% of your fund, you’re now only paying 15% on your withholding tax, not 30%. But the index itself assumes a 30% withholding tax. 

This creates a structural benefit where the fund would consistently outperform the benchmark, because of the fact that you’re paying 15% less on your tax. That means, net of fees, you’re kind of getting that gain over and above your index, for all time periods. 

And effectively, what it does is it subsidises the cost of the underlying fund. So, because of the fact that you are now getting an outperformance of the index, you’re actually gaining back the cost of your fund. 

And also, that tax saving effectively offsets your fee, and that’s a gain to the investor because you are “not paying a fee”, because the fund has essentially gained that through that withholding tax benefit.

So yeah, for me, that would mean that you are effectively in line with the index. And everybody complains, “Oh, ETFs are always behind the index.” But that’s because of costs. 

In this instance, you’re going to see that the fund should essentially be in line with the index, because of that gain from that withholding tax benefit.

The Finance Ghost: Super interesting!

So, I’m looking at the top holdings in the underlying index once you go all the way down to what this thing is actually tracking. Just to give you an idea of diversification, the biggest holding (and hopefully I’m looking at the right thing here) is Welltower? 

Lauren Jacobs: Yes.

The Finance Ghost: So if you go and have a look at Welltower (and it’s actually super fun), if you look at their About Us, they talk about being “positioned at the centre of the silver economy”. 

Now, before you panic and you think that this is a mining company that’s pretending to be a property company, what they’re talking about is senior citizens in places like the US, the UK and Canada. 

These are developed markets which have, I will remind you, a serious birth rate problem, an ageing population, lots and lots of older people who are getting older all the time (again, on average, not individually) because of better healthcare.

And that is interesting. That is an interesting long-term fundamental underpin. There is nothing like that on the JSE. There is not a single property company on the JSE that is anything like that. So, that’s just one example. 

Then, Prologis is second. That’s basically the GOAT of logistics plays. That’s the big one. That is the big one.

Lauren Jacobs: Yeah [laughing]

The Finance Ghost: Also in the top five are Equinix and Digital Realty Trust. Those are both data centre-type plays.

Lauren Jacobs: Correct.

The Finance Ghost: And then in fourth place is Simon Property Group (something I’ve researched on Magic Markets Premium a couple of times), which is, again, the GOAT of retail malls in the US.

And again, in the US, if you actually have a look, there’s this horrible long tail of crummy malls that no one wants – it’s a bit like their banks…

Lauren Jacobs: [laughing]

The Finace Ghost: …but the best ones are fantastic, and Simon plays among the best ones. So, that is a really interesting way to go and get that kind of exposure.

Almost 8% sits in Welltower – that’s the senior citizen residential stuff. Prologis, seven-and-a-bit percent. If you combine Equinix and Digital Realty Trust, you’re looking at like 7.7% – that’s the data centres, among those two. There are probably some more further down. And Simon, at like 3.5%. 

That’s just your top five holdings. It’s very interesting. I see there’s a storage name down there. There are a couple of storage names down there, actually. 

So, again: diversification. For anyone who thinks that diversification is not important, go back and listen to some of the podcasts we’ve done on this series with people like Kingsley, with people like Nico. Just go and have a listen, it’s something we’ve spoken about. 

The whole team, really. Siya, Duma. It’s come up over and over again. It’s come up in conversations with professionals way beyond Satrix, because everyone understands that diversification is important. 

So, my favourite thing about this ETF is that now there is a way on the JSE to actually go and get this exposure with a single investment and, like you say, a debit order. I would encourage listeners to listen to the discussion I had with René at the end of last year about how far things have come. 

It’s absolutely incredible that you can set up a monthly debit order, and a portion of your wealth every month will flow into assets like US senior-citizen housing. Just contemplate how interesting that is, compared to going and hacking your way through that buy-to-let flat that you’ve owned since you were 25 and has gone nowhere in its value. 

I mean, I’m being slightly facetious, but go and speak to enough people who have done that, and they all have pain in their eyes – especially, I’m afraid, if it’s places like Joburg. There hasn’t been much property growth over the past, like, 10 years.

I actually went and looked, just for fun, at the apartment in Lonehill where I lived during my articles – which I bought because I articled at a bank and you could get access to this super-cheap funding. And obviously, I had my parents in my ears like, “Well, go and buy property. This is the thing to do.”

That would have been almost 15 years ago now. Whatever it is, I promise you (and I wish I was joking), those apartments are selling for the same price today. 

Lauren Jacobs: Oh gosh, that’s really killer! [laughing]

The Finance Ghost: The same price. That’s horrific! It’s so bad [laughing]. So, you know, you’ve got to be careful with this stuff.

Lauren Jacobs: Yeah, I think it’s…okay, maybe my experience is a bit different. In Cape Town, obviously, it’s a little bit different.

The Finance Ghost: Yeah, it’s very regional.

Lauren Jacobs: But then you get to a point where you also have to take the tax into consideration. Because now, your return is higher than what you’re paying in terms of your bond payment and your interest. That’s also an important thing to think about. 

And if we go back to having a Satrix investment and putting it in your tax-free savings account, the dividends that you get from this listed property ETF – those are not taxable. So, it’s a win-win situation if you now buy the ETF through Satrix and also put it in your tax-free savings account, it’s like a no-brainer to really put a lot of those income-generating ETFs into your tax-free savings account, and just gain in terms of the tax there.

The Finance Ghost: And people often use the argument, “Well, if you go and buy the physical property yourself, then you are getting the full upside on the capital, and you’ve leveraged the thing.” 

That’s great, now go take off your costs on the way in (which is your transfer duty, etcetera), and now your cost on the way out (of an estate agent) and give me your average holding period. 

And, unfortunately, the other argument that always happens is, “Yeah, but I made money.” And that’s always how people… Unfortunately, when they haven’t really been exposed to proper investment thinking, where you look at the world as an annual return, like a compound annual return over time.

Lauren Jacobs: Yes.

The Finance Ghost: The test is not, “Did you make a profit?” If you made R1,000 on R1 million over 10 years – yes, you made a profit, but you also didn’t. Because your friend, who went and bought shares, is definitely not sitting on R1,000 from his R1 million, or her R1 million. 

So anyway, the point is: always speak to your financial advisor. Look at these things as a portfolio, etcetera. But personally, I’m a strong proponent of property ETFs, whether local or offshore. 

That comes down to your personal decisions, what you want to own. I mean, that’s where it gets really interesting. But I’m a big proponent of property ETFs, rather than a buy-to-let investment.

Owning the home you live in and you raise your kids in and it’s close to the schools, that’s a lifestyle decision where you have a lot of other things you need to take into account, but certainly buy-to-let, Lauren, I would say the ETFs are more interesting, hey? 

Lauren Jacobs: [laughing]

The Finance Ghost: So, when are you selling your apartment and buying ETFs? That’s the big question.

Lauren Jacobs: Let’s not go there right now. Let’s not go there right now. [laughing]

The Finance Ghost: The pain trade. [laughing]

Lauren Jacobs: [laughing] Yeah. And again, going back to diversification. It’s not only what assets you have in your pension fund or in your other portfolios. You need to consider across all the bands. 

If you think of your pension fund. Yes, they’re allowed to go with 45% now, but if you look at it, most of the funds are sitting at like 35%, 38%. It’s not that full offshore exposure as yet. So there’s an opportunity there to increase your offshore exposure with this global property fund.

So it’s really looking at the spectrum of what your assets are, whether it’s your house, your pension fund, or your investment property (we may not call it an investment property, but that other property that you rent out).

It’s just thinking around, “What does my total portfolio look like? And how can I improve that, in terms of a) the dividends I’m getting out of it, and the return and the tax efficiency of the total portfolio.”

The Finance Ghost: Just a final comment from my side. If you do invest in this thing now (let’s say the rand strengthens over the next six months and property overseas doesn’t keep up with the level of the rand strengthening), don’t be surprised if it doesn’t give you an initial fantastic return, because your rand-based assets have probably done better. 

Again, it’s part of a portfolio. You should never just have one ETF. And I would say if you are going to have one ETF, it shouldn’t be offshore, because your life is in South Africa. 

So, if you’re going to have just one – which you should never do – you should be matching it to the currency that you spend in. That would be my two cents’ worth, I suppose. 

But as a part of a portfolio, I think it’s super interesting. It’s listed currently, so you can go and search it. The code is JSE: STXGLP, and that is the Satrix Global Property Feeder ETF. Very, very cool. 

Final question from my side, Lauren. How long does it actually take to get one of these things off the ground? 

Like, from when the team starts saying, “Hey, this is what we want to do,” until we see this on our screens, how long does that actually take? Because I’m sure it’s a lot. It looks simple from the outside – I’m sure it’s anything but simple on the inside.

Lauren Jacobs: We go with about six months. It also depends, because remember, you need your approvals via the FSCA, from your trustees, from the JSE. So, those processes take quite long. 

And then, if there are any questions from the FSCA, from the JSE, from trustees. It’s the back and forth. So, I’d say this one took a little bit more than six months, but yeah.

And then, once all those approvals come through, there’s obviously a JSE timeline in terms of creating that on the JSE. So, yeah, it takes quite long, from the inception of the idea.

And I must say that this idea has been around for a long time in terms of Satrix wanting to offer this global property offering to investors. It’s just that, at the time, we couldn’t find an underlying fund that we wanted to buy into, and that also gave us this Irish domicile. 

So, it’s taken us a while to get to that point, where we’ve actually found an investment that we wanted to offer to local investors. It’s been a long time coming. I think if you look at our Satrix Balanced and Satrix Low Equity Balanced Index funds on the unit trust side, you’ll see that we were already investing in global property now, I think, since 2022.

So, it’s already part of Satrix. It’s one of our investment views to invest in global property. We’ve been trying to bring this option to local investors outside of our Balanced funds for a while, and this year – sorry, in 2025, not this year – it came to fruition in December.

The Finance Ghost: Fantastic. Congrats. Don’t worry, my brain is still a little bit in 2025 as well. It’s very early in 2026, but off to a good start for the team.

Thank you, Lauren. Great start to the year. I really enjoyed this podcast. I look forward to a whole year of goodies with the Satrix team, obviously. And to you, again, just Happy New Year. To the listeners as well. Let’s get this year off to a strong start. 

Lauren, I’m sure we’ll be welcoming you back before too long to talk about something else, so thank you and may your year get off to an excellent start.

Lauren Jacobs: Thanks so much for having me again, Ghost! I’m looking forward to chatting to you again this year.

The Finance Ghost: Cool. Ciao.

Lauren Jacobs: Cheers.