Accelerate Property Fund is making proper strides now (JSE: APF)

This speculative investment has worked out well for me

Accelerate Property Fund is a good example of an unusually risky position in my portfolio. Sized appropriately (just in case), it worked out really well. My position is up 70%.

Of course, with the benefit of hindsight, I wish I had bought a lot more!

When property funds are in trouble, the good news is that you’ve got decent visibility on the underlying assets and liabilities. And thanks to transparent financial reporting by the company and a commitment to talking about the problems rather than hiding them away, I felt that the market was putting too steep a discount on the underlying net asset value (NAV) per share at Accelerate.

In a voluntary update for the year ending March 2026, it looks as though the company has made a lot of positive progress. We will only know for sure when the results are released in July.

Having previously executed a rights offer of R300 million and asset disposals of R1.7 billion, Accelerate had R2 billion in capital to help steady the ship. They reduced debt by R1.9 billion through these initiatives. With disposals of R378 million expected to transfer post year-end, things are looking up for the balance sheet.

Accelerate has invested R173 million into Fourways Mall since Flanagan & Gerard and Moolman Group were appointed as property and asset managers. The great news is that it’s working, with vacancies down to 9.4% from 16.1% in the prior year! It gets better – based on signed leases and those in advanced stages, vacancy is expected to reduce to approximately 5% by September 2026.

Average trading density at Fourways Mall has increased by 8.6% on a rolling 12-month basis. Footfall is up 20%. This is really impressive stuff.

The tenant mix in the precinct looks set to improve, with a focus on high-quality dining experiences. New tenants include Tashas and The Pantry.

They aren’t completely free of headaches, though. There are properties in the group outside of Fourways Mall. For example, Oceana Group has given notice that they will vacate Oceana House in the Foreshore when the lease expires in June 2026.

Another pain point is the lease with KPMG across several properties. It reverts to market-related rates with effect from August 2026 – and those rates are “materially” below the current levels.

The impact of the Oceana and KPMG leases is significant, with Accelerate noting that they are engaging with funders for covenant relief where required. This is still a speculative play, but the massive white elephant in the room – Fourways Mall – is showing excellent signs of life.

MTN announces several new directors (JSE: MTN)

They are really beefing up the board

MTN has announced the appointment of five new directors to the board. There are only two directors retiring from the board, so it looks like MTN is going to need a bigger boardroom table.

A name you’ll recognise from Ghost Bites is Herman Bosman, previously the CEO of RMB Holdings (JSE: RMH). He’s already involved with MTN as the chairman of MTN Group Fintech.

Advocate Ouma Resethaba was previously the Deputy National Director of Public Prosecutions and Head of the Asset Forfeiture Unit in South Africa. She brings plenty of experience to the board in dealing with risk.

Another local appointment is Ignatius Sehoole, previously the CEO of KPMG in South Africa, among other roles.

In terms of international perspectives, Stephane Richard (previously the CEO of Orange) and Saf Yeboah-Amankwah (ex-Chief Strategy Officer at Intel) have also joined the board.

That’s quite a show of intent from the company in terms of ramping up the skills in the room.

Reinet’s bank account just got a lot fatter (JSE: RNI)

But what will they do with the cash?

Reinet announced that the sale of the entire stake in Pension Insurance Corporation Group to Athora UK has been completed.

The proceeds? A casual £2.9 billion. In rand, that’s around R66 billion. That’s a chunky number.

What will they do with it? That’s anyone’s guess. The Rupert family companies are not exactly famous for share buybacks, so I suspect that they are going to look to deploy this capital into new investments.

To give you an idea of how enormous this number is, Reinet just received cash in excess of the entire Old Mutual (JSE: OMU) market cap of R58 billion. I’m not speculating on an acquisition here – I’m giving you context to the size of the war chest.

It’s actually even bigger than this, as Reinet is sitting on cash from previous disposals. Never mind a private island – Reinet could just about acquire a planet at this stage.

It’s not easy to figure out what to do with this kind of money. What do you think they will do with the proceeds?

Nibbles:

• Director dealings:
  • The Wiese family have been playing musical shares again with Invicta (JSE: IVT) shares. Across various family investment entities, a casual R492 million worth of shares changed hands.
  • A senior executive at Investec (JSE: INL | JSE: INP) sold shares in the company worth R10 million.
  • The chairman of Shaftesbury Capital (JSE: SHC) sold shares worth R2.8 million.
  • The CEO of Sibanye-Stillwater (JSE: SSW) bought shares worth R1.9 million.
  • The CEO of AVI (JSE: AVI) exercised share options and sold all the shares received. The value of the trade was R1.4 million.
  • The COO of Spur (JSE: SUR) sold shares worth R391k.
  • A director of KAP (JSE: KAP) bought shares worth R345k.

• Salungano Group (JSE: SLG) has finally caught up on financial reporting for the year ended March 2025. The results were actually a vast improvement on the comparable period, with operating profit swinging wildly from a loss of R309 million to profit of R189 million. HEPS was 2.62 cents, a whole lot better than a headline loss per share in the comparable period of 111.91 cents. I must note that at the end of March 2025, current liabilities exceeded current assets, which creates going concern risks. The company announced the appointment of Jannie Muller as the CFO of the company. He has been the interim CFO since February 2025. Let’s hope that the 2026 interim results will be next on his agenda, as the company still has catching up to do with its reporting.

• Rex Trueform (JSE: RTO) has released results for the six months to December 2025. There’s practically no liquidity in the stock, so they only get a passing mention down here. Revenue was up 4.4% and gross margin increased from 52.4% to 53.2%. Sounds good, except operating costs jumped by 20.1% due to the investment in technology companies in the group. Operating profit fell by 59%, creating a difficult situation in a business with thin margins. With finance costs slightly up, profit before tax fell by 83.9%. If we work off HEPS, the decrease was 98.2%! African and Overseas Enterprises (JSE: AOO), part of the same family of companies and with the same website, saw HEPS drop from positive 76.9 cents to a loss of 10.8 cents.

• Visual International Holdings (JSE: VIS) released a trading statement for the year ended February 2026. There’s very little liquidity in the stock, so it only gets a mention down here. HEPS is expected to be at least 20% higher than the 0.39 cents reported in the prior period. As with all trading statements, the wording “at least 20%” is the minimum required disclosure, so the final number may or may not differ by a much larger percentage.

• Randgold & Exploration Company (JSE: RNG) is a very small and obscure name on the local market. The company has released results for the year ended December 2025. Full focus is on “the recovery of claims related to assets allegedly misappropriated from it” – not the kind of vision or strategy statement that you’ll see every day. Oddly, they are spending more on personnel than on legal and forensic fees at the moment.

• AB InBev (JSE: ANH) announced that chairman Martin J. Barrington will be retiring after 7 years in the role. William F. Gifford, Jr has been proposed as the new chairman, subject to approvals.

• OUTsurance Group (JSE: OUT) has received approval from the JSE for the special dividend of 30.3 cents per share. I can’t help myself: shareholders will be getting something out! It’s incredible how an era of ads will stay with you for life.

• Wesizwe Platinum (JSE: WEZ) is catching up on financial reporting. They’ve released a trading statement dealing with the six months to June 2025. HEPS for the period increased by between 39% and 59%. The results are expected to be released by the end of March.

• Sable Exploration and Mining (JSE: SXM) is currently suspended from trading. This means that they need to provide a quarterly update to the market. They are currently engaging with potential auditors, so there’s a long road ahead. No timeline has been given for the expected lifting of the suspension.