The Waterfall City Development to Continue in 2020
Waterfall City’s extravagant development will commence again in 2020, along with a ‘new concept’ Courtyard hotel.
The financial results for 2020, which ended in June was published by the Real estate investment trust (REIT) Attacq, which presented a positive performance result for the year, regardless of the Covid-19 pandemic and the lockdown that accompanied it.
With a diverse property portfolio, Attacq includes the office, hotel, retail, mixed-use, and light industrial sectors. Although the group faced many challenges during Covid-19, the South African portfolio managed to perform surprisingly well. They concluded the year in June with an adequate net profit from its property operation, which excluded the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) adjustment for the straight-line leasing, along with net proceeds from the sale of title units that increased by 10.1% to R1.4 billion. This resulted in the net profit from property operations that increased by 4.2% before considering Covid-19 rental discounts.
Due to the complications caused as a result of the Covid-19 crisis, distributable earnings per share has declined by 10.5% to 73.1 cents per share, and the net asset value declined by 25.8% to R16.45. Rental income increased by 7.4% to R2.2 billion taking the rental discounts of R102.9 million into account.
Waterfall City Developments in 2020
Regardless of the challenges present in 2020, Attacq noted its premier developments still managed to progress, particularly in Waterfall City. During the financial year, there were eight buildings completed and four under construction.
According to the group, developments in Waterfall City’s precinct progressed, which was expected, even though construction sites were closed for months during the lockdown. This led to the developments’ total asset value at Waterfall to decrease, which includes the Attacq Sanlam joint revenue. It decreased by R1.7 billion from R2.3 billion in 2019, which is as a result of the eight developments.
The group’s gross asset value stands at R20.4 billion in developments completed at Waterfall, which include:
- Deloitte’s head office (Q4 Fy20)
- The Ingress building 2 (Q3 Fy20)
- The Ingress PSG Wealth (Q1 Fy20)
- Waterfall Corporate Campus (Q3 Fy20)
- Waterfall Point building 1 (Inventory)
- Waterfall Point building 2 (Q2 FY20)
- Waterfall Point building 3 (Inventory)
- Waterfall Point building 4 (Q2 FY20)
Construction on the remaining four developments is set to start in 2020.
