Delta Property Fund Limited (DLT) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for joining us for Delta Property Funds Webcast on the Interim Results for the 6 months ended August 31, 2022. Delta CEO, Siyabonga Mbanjwa, will start the proceedings right after the short video before handing over to CFO, Marelise de Lange, to unpack the financials. There will be a question-and-answer session following the presentation, but we do encourage you to please send through your questions throughout the presentation. [Operator Instructions] [Presentation]

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to our results presentation for the interim period that ended on the 31st of August 2022. Today, I am here with my CFO, Marelise de Lange, and we'll take you through the results presentation. The presentation includes a bit of introduction from myself, a business update, and a bit of an update on the strategy as well as an ESG update. And then Marelise will cover the financial review before I then conclude. We are going to be taking questions, as already indicated. Firstly, I just want to highlight that last week, on the 2nd of November, we celebrated 10 years as a Johannesburg Stock Exchange listed company. We are very proud of this. For any company to exist for a period of 10 years is significant. For a company such as ourselves to be listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange for 10 years is a significant milestone. That is worth celebrating. Therefore, we celebrated. We're hoping that the next 10 years, with your support, is going to continue to take the business from where it's at now to basically to new heights. Our turnaround is gaining momentum. As you all know, our strategy was approved in May of this year. From then on, we started the implementation of our strategy. The external environment at the moment, like with many businesses, particularly those that are in our sector, is challenging. We have geopolitical factors such as the war in Ukraine that is having an impact on the South African economy. Economic activity in South Africa is under pressure. COVID-19 is not completely gone, and it certainly has left a significant mark in the South African office sector. Vacancies, as things stand, are at a high and rental reversions are something that we are all getting used to today. High inflation has forced the South African Reserve Bank to hike interest rates at a significant rate, and this is having an impact in businesses, in general, and certainly, the property sector is also affected. These headwinds have -- despite these headwinds, Delta sovereign underpin portfolio continued to show resilience. A quick overview on how we have done in the first 6 months of this year. We're very proud, firstly, of the fact that our collections are above 100%, where they sit at 105.4%. Of course, this is showing that we are able to basically collect not just what we bill every single month, but we're starting to collect some arrears as well. That is critical for a business such as ourselves, and I'd like to pay a tribute to our staff who continue to do a really great job in this regard. We also are very proud of the fact that we continue to be a Level 1 BEE-rated entity, where our BEE rating was confirmed on Friday. Our black-shareholding has increased to over 40%, which is one of the highest in the REIT space. So we're very, very proud of that. We continue to be a sovereign underpinned fund with where we currently sit at 87%. So that has increased slightly from the 84.6% at the end of Feb 2022. Our LTV increased marginally from 57.8% to 58.2%. Marelise de Lange will take us through the detail around that. However, there were some positive -- there was a positive impact in the LTV in terms of the debt that we did pay down in the last 6 months, which is approximately $183 million. So that had a positive impact. But what are the biggest impact was the slight devaluation in the portfolio, which is largely in buildings that are vacant and that are currently held for sale. We are confident that the LTV will be improved as we start to gain momentum in terms of our disposals. I'll go into a little bit more detail in terms of how far we've gone with that. But we start -- we haven't quite seen the positive impact of the disposals program in our LTV. And we are very confident that by the end of the financial year, the positive impact will start to come through in that LTV. In terms of our net asset value, that also dropped slightly. But again, Marelise will touch on the reasons for that. There was a positive impact in terms of reduction of debt, but the biggest impact was in terms of rental reversions that allow the net asset value to reduce slightly. But again, we were expecting that in the initial stages of us implementing our strategy, this will happen, but we are implementing a 3-year strategy. So we are expecting the NAV to start to tick up again in the 3-year period that our strategy is based on. Our investment property, I've already highlighted, did reduce slightly from ZAR 7.9 billion to ZAR 7.5 billion, largely due to the devaluation of the portfolio, which is largely the vacant properties that I have highlighted. What we are finding in the market is that as soon as a property becomes vacant, then it does have a massive negative impact in terms of the valuation. So we have done valuations for a number of the properties, and this is basically the impact that this has had. Our funds from operations, I had ZAR 0.092. And I think Marelise will touch on some of the main sort of reasons regarding that. But the main reason is mainly rental reversions. And then finally, ICR has also dropped slightly, largely due to rental reversions. We are also seeing a bit of an impact based on a rising interest rate environment that we are currently in. In terms of the business update, so this basically is a representation of our portfolio throughout the country. So we still are represented in all 9 provinces. Our total GLA now stands at 893,091 square meters. The number of properties has reduced from 99 to 98, mainly because of 1 disposal, which was Delta House in Pretoria. I will not go into the rest of the detail. This is available, but this still shows that our largest province is Gauteng, followed by KwaZulu-Natal. In terms of vacancies. So vacancies throughout the country are on the increase and are currently at 16.4%. That is all properties throughout the country. That actually amounts to over 3 million square meters as of September 2022. This is according to the latest support vacancy report for the third quarter of 2022. What we're also finding is that 20.5% of B-grade offices are currently vacant throughout the country. What we are also finding is that vacancies in the Johannesburg CBD seem to have peaked at 35.5%. This is in terms of the SAPOA Vacancy Report as well. When it comes to Delta, vacancies did go up slightly to 33.9% from 31.3%, which was in February 2022. The major contributor towards this where, let's say, the main buildings were 3 buildings. So 1 was 17 Harrison Street, where we had Johannesburg Water as a tenant. They vacated at the beginning of the year. We also had Lobedo House, which -- where Eskom vacated in Sunninghill. We have subsequently sold that building. So that vacancy, as soon as the transfer has taken place, will then come down. And then the last one is Anchor House, which is where we had the Department of Roads and Transport in Bloemfontein that vacated. This slide just gives a diagramatic representation of what I've already highlighted this table where we had 99 properties at the beginning of the financial year. One was sold. So we now sit with 98. The next column basically shows that in terms of GLA. And then the third column basically then shows us the impact of the GLA, which was 17 Harrison, Lobedu, Anchor House. There were some other properties as well that amounted to about 10,000 square meters. So that then gave us a total vacancy of 303,000 square meters, therefore, amounting to 33.9%. In terms of new leases, the market, as I've indicated, has been very challenging. But despite that, we are very happy that we've been able to sign up to 6,546 square meters up to the end of the interim period, which is 31 August. Subsequent to that, we have signed another 1,679 square meters up to the end of September of this year. In terms of lease renewals, we have managed to renew leases up to 156,000 square meters roughly in the entire portfolio. This was always a risk in the portfolio, and it was one of our priorities to make sure that these leases are renewed as quickly as possible. Out of these renewals, 127,000 square meters roughly were expired month-to-month leases with the Department of Public Works and Infrastructure. 16,307 square meters were renewed post the reporting period. So we are continually ensuring that these leases are renewed. And then finally, we are also still busy in advanced discussions with the Department of Public Works and Infrastructure to ensure that we renew a further 50,000 square meters. These diagrams basically indicates the GLA per province, as I had already highlighted in the previous slide. And then the diagram on the right-hand side shows us vacancies in terms of provinces. So you'll see that Gauteng accounts for 41% of those vacancies; KZN, 23%; and the Free State province 15% and so forth. In terms of valuations, as I've indicated, there is a devaluation of the portfolio. The total amount of the devaluation is ZAR 353.4 million, which represents 4.5% of the portfolio. In February of this year, we did do a full valuation then, and the devaluation at that point was ZAR 314 million, representing about 3.8% of the portfolio. The devaluation, of course, has had a significant impact on the LTV, which I've already highlighted earlier on. And the main drivers for this devaluation is really the current state of the economy and the deterioration of the market, particularly where properties are vacant. So I just want to emphasize that the majority of the properties that we -- that have been impacted in this way is largely due to vacancies and lower demand for office buildings in the sector. Disposals. We previously reported that the disposals would be fast tracked, and we have been doing that in the last few months. We're very proud of the progress that we are making. And we know that the momentum is -- we're gaining momentum and that this will be fast tracked even further. We are again, just to emphasize why we're disposing of certain assets. We're disposing of assets in non-strategic locations in terms of scale, in terms of occupancy, performance and also the tenant profile. So that's part of the criteria that we are using to determine which properties to dispose of. We also are selling some properties in Gauteng. So for example, in the Johannesburg CBD, I did highlight that vacancies generally besides in the Delta portfolio are high in the Johannesburg CBD. Therefore, we are -- we have identified some properties that we are disposing of in that area. We also have identified properties in the Free State in the Northern Cape, Eastern Cape and the North-West provinces, where these provinces are no longer a strategic for Delta. The table here just gives an indication of where we are with regards to disposals. So we're very happy that we were able to get Delta House sold and transferred earlier this year in July. That brought in ZAR 74 million in proceeds that was transferred in July of this year. We also subsequent to the end of the interim period, managed to transfer the CNA building, which is a building located in Bloemfontein. We've also entered into sale agreements for 8 other properties as listed, Cape Road, 3 Simba, 5 Simba, both of those being in Sunninghill; Trustfontein is in Bloemfontein; Fort Drury & Katleho, both in Bloemfontein; WB Centre in the Northern Cape; Nedbank building in the Free State; and finally, Enterprise Park, which is the last building that we have sold in the Sunninghill as part of our Sunninghill portfolio. These properties we're expecting to transfer over the next couple of months, and we are expecting to see a positive impact in terms of debt reduction as well as in terms of our loan to value. This is a geographical split by sale, sale value. So you'll see that in the Free State, we have now sold 4 properties in the Northern Cape, 1; in Gauteng, 4; and in the Eastern Cape, we've sold 1 property. CapEx remains a key driver for us to ensure that we keep our buildings in good condition and to ensure that we utilize this to basically renew leases and ensure that our tenants are happy with the buildings that they are in. So in the period, in the interim period, we spent ZAR 32.9 million on CapEx for the period up to 31, August, 2022. Some of the projects that we have been busy with, we were busy with various projects at the Hallmark building, which is a Head Office for the Department of Home Affairs and Pretoria where we've replaced floor finishes. We've installed a new emergency evacuation system, upgraded emergency escapes and we're in the process of replacing carpeting in offices. We also upgraded the Servamus building, which was affected by a fire last year. And we've done a significant amount of work in that particular building, which is occupied by the South African police service. Commissioner House is occupied by the SAPS in Bellville, in the Capetown area, Western Cape, where we've done various projects there as well, such as replacing of palisade fencing, waterproofing, replacement of carpets. And then we've -- yes, and then the next building where we have also done a significant amount of work, in fact, we have spent the most amount of money in this building is the Poynton building, which is in Pretoria. We are replacing 16 passenger lifts in there, where 2 of the lifts have already been installed and commissioned, and we are in the process of completing the rest of the lifts. And this should be done by March 2023. We've also done a significant amount of work in terms of the fire system in the building that has been replaced. And we are also doing a significant amount of work in terms of plumbing and electrical upgrades that are currently underway. The last building on that slide is the WB Center, where we've installed a new standby generator. This was a commitment that we had in terms of the lease agreement that we had signed. So we have subsequently sold this building, but it still is in our books, but we're expecting it to be transferred fairly soon. We've done more work there, such as painting of lift lobbies and other works. The next building where we've done some -- we've spent some CapEx is the Du Toits Pan building, which is also a building in the Northern Cape in Kimberly specifically, there we've also installed a standby generator, which was a contractual requirement in terms of the lease that we signed. And then the next building is the Veritas building, which is in Pretoria. There we've replaced 2 passenger lifts. And we're expecting to complete this work at the end of this year. We've also replaced floor finishes in that building. We've done electrical upgrades, kitchen upgrades, upgrade of the HVAC system, replacing of emergency escape fire doors, replacement of lift foyer fire doors and other works. The last building to highlight is the Forum Building, which is occupied by the Department of Transport in Pretoria, where we have been replacing individual HVAC units and offices. And we've also installed a vinyl floor tiles on some of the floors. This is basically how we are spending our CapEx in the various areas. So we constantly monitor this. So you'll see that we've spent the largest amount of CapEx in KwaZulu Natal, where 38.9% of the CapEx has been spent. This is followed by Gauteng Province, where we're sitting with 36.3%. These are just some of the images that indicate some of the CapEx that we have spent. These are the before and after pictures at Servamus building, which was damaged by a fire last year. This project has now been completed. This is the -- some pictures of some of the works that are currently underway in terms of the new lifts and the fire system that has been upgraded at Poynton' in Pretoria. This is the Hallmark building showing some of the carpets that have been replaced. Okay. In terms of strategy and the ESG framework, so the strategy has been approved and implementation is well underway. This is basically a diagram that just summarizes what the key -- what our vision is, the mission, the values. So all of that has not changed. We have added the key strategic pillars, which is what we are utilizing to basically drive the strategy forward. I'll touch on some of the strategic pillars and some of the work that we are doing in terms of these pillars, starting with disposals. I've indicated 2 properties have already been transferred, 8 properties are in the process of being transferred. We are in negotiations with some potential buyers on 5 properties, where we are expecting approximately ZAR 190 million in proceeds. So that will be a significant increase to our disposals program. We are also looking at disposing of the rest of the properties over the next few months. The number of properties that we had earmarked for or that are classified as held for sale has increased from 26 to 37 properties. If they are held for sale, it means that we are expecting to dispose of these assets within the next 12 months or so. We also have started looking at converting some of the buildings that have little prospect of being let out or where it is not strategic for us perhaps to dispose. So we have started with feasibility studies and are making progress on at least 1 project to date. We're expecting that this will gain further momentum over time. One of the other key strategic areas that we are focusing on is on our capital structure. We feel that the capital structure needs to be improved. Therefore, a lot of effort is going into this. Disposals are a big part of it as well, but we are also looking at other initiatives, together with the Board to look at how we can drastically improve the capital structure of the business. We are going to be fast tracking those efforts going forward. In terms of Leasing & Business development, which is another one of our key pillars, we have created capacity within the property management department by appointing a new leasing manager who basically is going to be coordinating all our leasing activities. So we're expecting to start seeing some results in this regard over time. This is, we continue to submit a significant amount of bids on a regular basis to government, state-owned enterprises as well as private sector clients. We are also in the process of appointing various service providers to basically look at boosting some of our non-GLA income. In terms of the People Centred pillar, we have created quite a bit of capacity at senior level within the business. This is critical for us to be able to implement our strategy adequately. Some of the capacity that we have created is in the Human Resources department, where we've appointed a new head of human capital. We've also appointed a new Senior Asset Manager within the Asset Management Department, which is critical as part of our portfolio optimization strategy. We are focusing quite a lot on the climate survey that we did earlier this year. The outcomes of that survey are receiving a lot of attention from executive management, the Head of Human Capital as well as Heads of Departments. We also are very happy that we've been able to get a short-term incentive scheme approved by our REMCO which will start to get implemented so that we can ensure that staff are adequately incentivized to perform even better going forward. Two further pillars. One is Operational Efficiency. So we are paying a lot of attention to ensure that we don't have repeat business, mistakes are limited and that we are as efficient as we can from an operational perspective, we think that this will help us reduce costs and will basically reduce any chance of things going wrong. So we've implemented new systems and facilities management, in finance, property management, all that are aimed at ensuring that this happens. And as a principle, we also are improving a continuous improvement sort of culture in the business where we are continually looking at improving our efficiencies going forward. The last pillar that we are also focusing on is just ensuring that we build trust with our stakeholders. So we do engage quite regularly with our stakeholders to listen, get feedback, provide information on how things are going within the business. We recently, in August, held a visit to some of our sites for some of our key investors, and that went really, really well. It was an opportunity for our investors to get to see the state of our assets, to get to see where we've also been investing a significant amount of funds. And as far as our tenants are concerned, we are increasing visibility and accessibility to our tenants, which helps us also in being able to respond to tenant needs. So this is quite an important pillar for us. And we are becoming a lot more action orientated and responsive to tenant needs. Finally, when it comes to ESG, we previously reported that we had started a process of doing an ESG peer benchmarking exercise, which was part of Phase 1 of the program that we are implementing. We have now almost completed Phase 2, which is the development of a fit-for-purpose ESG framework or road map. The draft framework has already been finalized. And this has been presented to our Social Ethics and Transformation Committee of the Board. It was well received, and some comments have been received, and we will be in the process of finalizing that so that we can then move into implementation, which is basically Phase 3. We continue to monitor what happens in the environment that we operate in. For example, we are monitoring developments on the JSE; when it comes to ESG, we also are monitoring developments; when it comes to SA REIT Association, we are monitoring developments globally as well. I'll just quickly touch on some of the key sort of aspects of the framework. Of course, bearing in mind that the framework is in draft form at this stage. So the ESG vision is to be a key partner that enables support and supporting a transformed listed property sector. We're looking at contributing to a sustainable property sector through improved ESG risk management. We're looking at integrating in ESG considerations in our decision making. And finally, we're also looking at communicating quality decision, useful ESG and sustainability information. The rest of the framework is available on the presentation for further engagement. We'll be able to present this more fully as soon as the framework has been finally approved. I'd like to now hand over to my colleague, Marelise de Lange, who is going to take us through the financial review.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for joining us this morning for our results presentation. And thank you, Siya, for the slides that follow that wins before this. It gives us very good context in terms of where we are at the moment. And I think as Siya said earlier, we'll touch on some of the points such as the LTV and we'll touch on items such as our NAV and our the devaluation that happened in the last period. So just to kind of go through that in detail. We now look at this very slide that we have in front of you at the moment, I think the few points that I would like to point out, we will touch on the rental income and our net property income on the slides that follow. Our net increase in finance costs, as you're all aware that in the last while, we had quite a bit of increases in November '21 as well as in June 2022, there was a 50 basis points in total increase. And in the last period, we had more than 150 basis points increase in terms of interest rates that went up. And I think considering that it was only ZAR 8.5 million, the increase that we had from August last year to where we are now, at [ Sports & Portal ] as well to the fact that when we look at our interest rate that we had on our margin with our largest funded Nedbank, we reduced that margin as well from 4% -- 400 basis points to 350 basis points. And that assisted us in getting that interest rate slightly lower than what the market agenda would have felt. I think that goes hand in hand for me with our weighted average interest rate as well, going from 7.1% to 8.1% at this point. And at the same time, when we look at our average debt expiry period, and I'll unpack that a bit later when we get to further slides in terms of our interest-bearing borrowings. We unfortunately went while from 0.8 years to 0.9 years, which is not fantastic at this point in time, and we do acknowledge that. But I will unpack that for you as we go along. Some of these have already been increased in terms of subsequent to our period end with some of our negotiations with our funders. When I look at our REIT cost-to-income ratio, it's 47.7% compared to 45.1% in August last year. And the main driver there is the fact that we do not recover rates and taxes as most funds do from their tenants. Our government tenant, which is our largest tenant in our instance, do not pay rates and taxes in terms of a recovery that we have as part of the base that we have. When we come to our investment property, I will unpack that in our next slide when we talk on the balance sheet side of things. Our investment in listed securities, I think interesting to mark is that in August 2021, that is our investment in GRIT. At that point in time, the share price was at USD 0.53 and compared to exchange rate of 14 51. And at August 2022, we had a ZAR 0.30 share price compared to ZAR 0.17 exchange rate. So you can see from that, although the share price decreased quite significantly, we had quite a bit of offset against that in terms of the exchange rate that increased from 14 51 to 17 10. When we get our SA REIT loan to value, yes, we had an increase in our loan to value from 56.9% to 58.2%. The main driver in that. And you would recall that in February, we had 57.8%. So the main driver of that decrease in our -- or increase in the LTV, apologies, is because of the devaluation that we see in our investment portfolio as well as offset to a certain extent by the fact that we have amortization that happens on our liability side, as well as the disposals that happened from the Delta House disposal as well as the CNA. So when we go further, again, our SA REIT net asset value, we will unpack that a bit further later. But just to point out that we went from ZAR 5.25 to ZAR 4.27. And we had 469 at year-end in February 2022. And again, the main driver around that is our reduction in value that we had. I think if I can go to our next slide. So in our statement of financial position. The two items I really like to talk about here as our investment property side of things as well as our interest-bearing borrowings. So when I look at our investment property side, we've decreased from ZAR 7.1 million in February 2022 to ZAR 6.5 million, where we are now. It's approximately ZAR 400 million decrease. And I think that seems rather large. I think when we look at the numbers. But in totality, when we look at it's a 7.4% decrease that we had there, but it is mainly due to -- when we look at our JSE listing requirements, we are required to test our assumptions at every reporting period, which we do. And at that point in time, I think as Siya indicated earlier, is there's quite a bit of vacancies in the market that's coming through and those kind of things. So when we tested the assumptions, a lot of those headwinds that we find in the market as well as the assumptions in terms of vacancy has come through, and we see that in our portfolio as well coming through. When we look at our -- again, in our investment in listed securities, as we previously indicated, we went from ZAR 0.53 in August going to February at ZAR 0.48 and then ZAR 0.30 in August now. So there's quite a bit of decrease in that share price of GRIT, but it's been offset to a certain extent with the increase in the exchange rate that would benefit us from that perspective. Bearing in mind, I think when we looked at it in September already, it went from the ZAR 76 million where we are now to approximately ZAR 100 million. So at this point in time, we are looking to move our investment in GRIT shares from the SIM to the London Stock Exchange, and we are looking to dispose of those shares in the near future. When I look at our interest-bearing borrowings, our interest-bearing borrowings in totality, long and short term. Unfortunately, we still have a rather large portion in our short-term portion, and we're working quite hard in trying to see how to relook at our balance sheet in order to get that in a better position. And part of that, as Siya was saying, is the reduction in our debt from disposals. When we look at that, we had ZAR 183 million reduction in our debt over the last 6 months. And the drivers that made that possible for us was the ZAR 74 million disposal that we had and net of commission, that was ZAR 72.5 million, and the remainder of that being ZAR 111 million was due to amortization. When we look at the amortization and now I'll go through that detail a bit more when we come to the slide unpacking the actual facilities. We had a bit of a reduction in our amortization as well going forward. When we go to our statement of profit and loss and other comprehensive income, here we would like to touch on a reduction from August last year to where we are now August 2022, when we look at the comparable periods in terms of our rental income. The majority driver there is a reversion, a bit of reversion that we had from our government tenants. And that is because those leases came to an end. It was 10-year leases that we had. They came into an end, so very high rental at that point in time coming down to market-related rental. And that has now also concluded for another 5-year and 10-year lease in terms of the new leases that we've concluded in that area, which is Polokwane. You can see from the property operating expenses that we kind of contracted slightly on that due to cost consciousness that we've kind of kept in line. Particularly in August 2021, we had a lot of additional costs that we brought on to our income statement because we specifically had new equipment that we put in place. And as a result, there's service contracts that we had around that. That has now been stabilized, and that is the effect of what we can see now in our August 2022 numbers. And I think equally, so when you look at our administration expenses, that kind of normalized as well in terms of getting to the same level and not necessarily increasing year-on-year. When you look at our dividend income, we did have in August 2021, there was a dividend income, a declaration of dividends from GRIT. There was a declaration from GRIT on the 28th of October for ZAR 0.02, and we do expect them to see a similar number coming through just after this reporting period. Our fair value adjustments, the ZAR 368 million that you can see there for August. When we look at that number, it is mainly made up of our property valuations, devaluation of the property of ZAR 374 million, as well as the GRIT devaluation in totality of both of ZAR 42 million. But it's been offset to a certain extent of the ZAR 48 million of the derivative side. So when we start looking at the derivatives, although we have not taken on new derivatives in order to hedge the interest rate environment that we are in. What we have found, though, is that our interest rate derivatives are now coming into the market again, and therefore, we're no longer underwater in terms of derivatives. And I think that's definitely a result of the interest rate environment that we find ourselves in, but that is assisting us in terms of getting those numbers right. Unfortunately, we're still in a tax paying position. And I think maybe to touch on that right now, we did not declare a dividend for this period. And as a result, I think when we start looking at our numbers, one of our main drivers is we are still not in full compliance with our covenants that we have, which is loan-to-value of 50% as well as our interest cover ratio of 2x. As we said earlier, we are at 58.2% in terms of loan-to-value and we're at 1.7x in terms of the interest cover ratio. So in terms of these disposals that we have earmarked, these ones will bring us closer to our 50% loan-to-value as well as starting to bring us closer to our 2x interest cover ratio. And that is our main driver in terms of how we got to those numbers. We have already touched on our finance cost, and I think that's taken sufficient care of. When we look at our REIT funds from operations, the main driver in the statement is to show what is the distributable earnings per share, and it went from ZAR 0.248 to ZAR 0.092. So yes, there's a 63% decrease in that number. And the main driver around this was our rebasing of our rent in terms of that portfolio that we had that came through. And as you can see, we have removed all the fair value adjustments from the statement. And I think it does give a sense as to what the over-renting had in the previous period to where we are now. And that was the impact on our funds from operations, which is our distributable earnings for this period. When we move to our, again, our funds from operation graphically, you can see that our rent reversion is the main contributor from getting our number from where we were at ZAR 177.5 million to ZAR 65.7 million. Again, there are small amounts that take it up. So as you would have seen in our property expenses, we came down in property expenses, and that was a driver of taking that -- taking up or increasing our funds from operation, but bringing that down, certainly is our largest driver is the devaluation or the rent reversion and our provisions for bad debt that brought that down. When we go to our next slide, just to touch on our valuations. As I said earlier, we do look at every reporting period, we look at the assumptions that were applied at the prior reporting period. And in general, we don't always find a material impact on our numbers. In this instance, we have moved an additional ZAR 525 million of our assets from investment property to non-current assets held for sale. And yes, there was a devaluation on our entire portfolio to the extent of ZAR 374 million. We do expect that our non-current asset held for sale will be recovered through sale rather than through holding for rental income purposes. And again, we've used our same value as to look at our portfolio. We do -- it's independent valuers, and we have given you the list of our independent valuers that we do use. So there was no reason for us to change any of our valuers, and we do believe that our valuers are correct at this point in time. When we get into our debt funding side, our interest-bearing borrowings reduced by 4%, as we said previously, from ZAR 4.5 billion to ZAR 4.3 billion. With Investec, we had a renewal for ZAR 575 million for 2 years and ZAR 135 million for 18 months. You do not see this yet in the results because that happened post period end that we happened or that took place. And with Bank of China and State Bank of -- sorry, Bank of China as well as the Nedbank facility, we are ongoing engagements with them on the renewal of that. It is still remaining on a short-term basis. But we are certainly, as we get closer to our LTV of 50% and all the other metrics that are required in terms of interest cover ratio, we'll start seeing that, the changes in that as well. Again, our SA REIT LTV increased from the 58.2% -- or increased to 58.2% from the 57.8% due to our devaluation that happened in the past. When we look at our debt summary, so firstly, we have -- when we look at our Nedbank facility that we have there, there's 2 syndicated facilities within that total number of ZAR 2.7 billion. Nedbank's portion of that is approximately ZAR 2.5 billion. There's ZAR 95 million allocated to Bank of China as a syndicated facility, and then there's a State Bank of India in there as well for approximately ZAR 165 million. As I've indicated, the Nedbank and the Bank of China facility is ongoing negotiation at the moment in order for the renewal, and we will be looking to renew that facility at the 7th of December. On Standard Bank, there was no change at this point in time in terms of our tenure that we have with Standard Bank. We signed a facility with them last year. It was a ZAR 500 million non-amortizing facility and a ZAR 300 million amortizing facility. That ZAR 300 million amortizing facility is now ZAR 194 million due to disposals that took place and starting and the amortizations that take place there. The Investec facility, again, as I've indicated, it's a ZAR 575 million facility, and that's post period end. That will be for 2 years. And ZAR 135 million, that is for 18 months. The ZAR 135 million facility is linked directly to the GRIT shares and then cross-collateralized with the other properties as well. And that is what we are looking to dispose of the GRIT shares as well as some of the assets that we've earmarked is for the Investec side of things. And our Bank of China bilateral loan is ZAR 136 million, and that's assigned to December 2026. That takes our total weighted average interest rate from 7% or weighted average total, including our swaps to 7%. When we go on to our LTV bridge, I think what is quite evident from this bridge is that the increases that we're seeing in our LTV is as a result of the devaluation of the portfolio as well as the devaluation of the GRIT shares. That took care of approximately 3% of the total devaluation. That's been offset by the amortization as well as the settlement or the disposal that happened for Delta House that we've taken care. So in totality, taking us to 58.2%. When we look at our SA REIT NAV per share, again, when we look at this, it is almost the inverse of what we're looking at in the LTV side of things. So with NAV increasing with the reduction in debt, as well as the disposals that we had. And again, what reduces our LTV -- sorry, our net asset value, again, is the devaluation that we see on the side of -- on our property portfolio. All right. Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. I'm going to hand back to Siya. Thank you.

Okay. I think in conclusion, there is no doubt that geopolitical and macroeconomic headwinds remain a challenge for Delta and many other businesses in this space. We are quite confident that our strategic plan is sound and will enable Delta to navigate these tricky waters or this tricky terrain. It is a 3-year plan. Therefore, it will take a bit more time before real, significant traction is gained, but we are quite happy with some of the positive outcomes that we are starting to see. So implementation of the strategy is definitely well underway. It is gaining momentum. There are certain areas that we're going to be focusing a lot more over the next few months so that by the time that we announce our year-end financials, we can see much more positive impact of the strategy. Optimizing our capital structure is one of our key, key priorities, and that is one of those legs that is going to be gaining a lot more focus over the next few months. We remain committed to take the company to new heights by focusing on the basics when it comes to property fundamentals, thereby ensuring that Delta offers quality assets to tenants and that we can offer our shareholders sustainable returns. Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. I will now hand over back to Morne so that he can coordinate the questions and the answers. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Quite a number of questions have come through. Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen, predominantly focusing on dividend payments, rental reversions and portfolio devaluations. Some of the questions overlap. So if your question is answered by another respondent, please bear with us, and we won't go back to that particular question. Sir, the first question is from Mr. Bernard from [indiscernible], who's asking, when are you expecting to pay the next dividend? And can we expect future regular dividend payments?

Yes. So can we expect regular dividends? Yes, I think that's exactly what we are working towards at the moment. But it's very, very important that we get this business to a stage where it is sustainable so that we can pay those dividends on a regular basis. As a listed REIT, it is a requirement that we should do that. But at the same time, we cannot put the business in a precarious position by simply paying out dividends when we still feel that retaining a bit of that cash and utilizing it where the business needs at most in order to be sustainable is required. So some of our key metrics that we are watching is, firstly, the LTV. Another one is ICR. So we are aiming at ensuring that we bring LTV to 50% and less, and we are also aiming to bring the ICR at 2 or above. And I think as soon as those metrics get to those kind of levels, then we should be in a position to resume the payment of dividends in a more sort of sustainable manner. So they are. So that's basically the answer to that question. Morne?

Sorry, Morne, if I can just add to that as well. That when we look at our LTV and ICR in particular, we also take into consideration the CapEx that we need to spend in this business as well as tenant installation requirements that we have from previous leases that were signed. So it does take a bit of time for us to implement that and make sure that we actually get a positive conclusion on that in order to make sure that we retain our tenants from that perspective. So it's equally important as our loan to value as well as our ICR.

A follow-up question from [ Vernon de Brain ] is would you be able to put a timeline on that, given the fact that you've disclosed the parameters? But would you be able to communicate the timeline as to when you expect to reach those?

Yes, I think we -- when we announce our results for the end of the financial year, we'll be in a much better position to be able to provide clearer timelines because at that stage, we would have been in the implementation of our strategy over a number of months by that stage. So it should be a lot easier to then project and even make that public. Of course, internally, we have our ideas, but I think at this stage, it's still early days for us to be able to communicate that in public.

And then [ Vernon de Brain ] is also asking if there's any risk of losing your REIT status as a result of the non-payment of distributions?

Marelise?

I think, Vernon, when you look at the REIT status, it's very specific in terms of what the requirements are. At this point in time, we are a REIT. But yes, you're quite right. One of the requirements of being a REIT is that we have to distribute dividends, at least 75% of our dividends need to be distributed. That is something that we're looking at into at this point in time. And you're quite right that it's a very big consideration for us at this point in time. So we are considering that. And I think you are right that we would run the risk of losing our REIT states if we do not resume dividends.

Thank you very much. [ Anton Dura from Coronation ] posted two questions. He asks why are the most -- why are most of the renewables only for 12 months? What was the negative reversion on the lease renewals. He says, as per the results released, the average rental increased from ZAR 107 to ZAR 125 per square meter since FY 2022. Please explain this number as you reference negative reversions on renewals.

Okay. I think Marelise can maybe handle the second one on the rentals per square meter versus the rental reversions. But the first question, why are most of them 12 months? I indicated earlier that our largest tenant is the Department of Public Works and Infrastructure. We have been in negotiations with the department for some time to renew a number of these leases. So what became easier at that stage in order to try and get the process going was to now renew for the 12-month period. The idea with that was to ensure that, firstly, we regularized the month-to-month leases because they were problematic for ourselves as well as for the department. So we were able to then get a lot of these 12-month leases entered into -- what we are now busy with is to try and extend those for a longer period. So it's just brought us more time so that we are able to have more time. What has also happened is that the department has changed. It's sort of standard lease agreement. So we are in negotiations with regards to some of the terms and conditions of that lease. So it's taking a little bit longer. But I think it is going relatively well in terms of the interactions that we've been having with them. So that covers the first part of the question. I'll ask Marelise to just cover the second one.

Thank you, Siya. So correct, Anton. In terms of our rental reversion that we've seen, it was a significant rental reversion from a 10-year lease -- two 10-year leases coming down to approximately more than what their ending rental was. So at that point in time, yes, to answer that, it was a significant reversion. We are then seeing, again, that by signing another 10-year or 5-year lease, we will see ourselves again increasing that. However, taken into consideration as well is that, that does not necessarily mean the entire portfolios over rented. That was specific to Polokwane and that has now normalized back to the normal rentals that we found. So yes, that is a significant impact that we had in our results, and you can see the numbers approximately ZAR 70 million to ZAR 80 million that we had in the year. Talking about the 12-month leases and how again, how did we get the weighted average rental increase at that point in time. When we look at weighted average rental for the period. If we don't have a period to it, i.e., it's month-to-month, then we don't have a weighted average attached to it. So therefore, by signing our 12-month leases that we have in March this year, then brought them into the calculation of our weighted average rental fall in terms of our leases. And therefore, you would have seen the increase then up to ZAR 105 million from ZAR 107 million in the prior period -- yes, sorry, in the Feb, this period.

Thank you, Marelise. [indiscernible] from BBGI is asking, the current earnings per share is very low relative to current share price and net asset value. Does that mean more value write-downs are expected based on the discounted expected earnings we're applying adjusted lower rates?

So I think when we look at the fundamentals of earnings per share, that takes the income statement, basic earnings per share will take our income statement into consideration. And that means that the fair value adjustments that's currently in the income statement is calculated when we look at basic earnings per share. When we look at headline earnings per share, so that would have been negative. When you look at our headline earnings this year, we take out that fair value adjustment. And then we get to a normalized, if I can put it that way, headline earnings. Comparing that to NAV, I think we're comparing earnings to a balance sheet metric at the moment. And then I think you said, Morne, the comparison then to the share price. So I think when we look at it, I mean, the comparison that probably is more relevant as the share price versus the NAV. We do see that the value in this business is still ZAR 4.27. And yes, the share price certainly is not reflective of that NAV. The drivers behind that, I mean, it is market sentiment, and I don't think we can't comment on the share price move to that extent. But I think -- I'm hoping that I've answered the question in terms of the earnings per share versus the NAV.

Thank you very much, Marelise. [ Nazim Samson from Investec ] asked a couple of questions. What is the debt amortization value for the year? I assume it's part of the repayment of borrowings of the ZAR 124 million in the cash flow.

Correct, you're quite right on that. As I said previously, when you look at that number, ZAR 72.5 million of that was -- and I think you'll also see that separately, is the repayment of debt as a result of the disposal. About ZAR 111 million of that was for the repayment of debt due to amortization. And you're quite right. And I think that's not -- and I only reminded myself about that after is that when we look at our amortization, we did have approximately ZAR 18 million a month amortization. We have now agreed to reduce approximately ZAR 10 million of that per month with our funders, which is really supportive of this business. And you can see that from the amortization of that's coming through, and that will all help us to start getting into that position where yes, amortization will be less, but we'll certainly from the disposal will still reduce our debt numbers where we need to get them.

Your second question is on vacancies. What are the vacant tenants -- where are the vacant tenants moving to? Are they staying in the node? And if so, at what rentals versus your offer to retain them?

Let me touch on that. So what we are finding is that the market is extremely competitive when it comes to bidding. What we have done with regards to our bids, it's to ensure that we as competitive as possible in terms of the rentals that we are offering. So we always are guided. Generally, government will use ROTE as a guideline, and they generally are not comfortable to pay higher than that. So we use that as a guideline as well to determine how competitive we ought to be. A lot of the vacancies that are coming into the picture now are obviously vacancy. These are decisions that we've taken some time ago. These are not decisions that we're taking just in the last couple of months, they were taken a while back. So those are possibly bids where somebody did outbid us in one way or the other. But from what we can see, if you take the Eskom lease, for example, Eskom moved back into their premises. They have plenty of space and there was no need for them to rent space from us in Sunninghill any longer. That's why they moved back in there. Department of Roads in Poynton has stayed in the node as far as we are aware. And finally, also Johannesburg Water has stayed in the node in the Johannesburg CVD as far as we are aware.

And Siya, if I can just add to that as well. When you look at the Johannesburg Water in particular, they were in two adjacent buildings next to one another, and they were definitely wanting to be in one single building. And unfortunately, that's something that we could not accommodate at that point in time. We did not have a sufficient space for them to accommodate in.

The last question from Nasim is what has changed on the lease expiry profile. FY '22 shows 40%. Was 28% in month-to-month and 12% in FY '23? It is now marginally better at 39% at H1 '23 with a shift from month-to-month to FY '23. Were the renewals effective post period end? Or whether only for 12 months renewals?

I think when you look at our vacancy profile there in particular, we signed our 12-month leases only after February 2022. So you would not have seen them really in the Feb 2022 numbers. You will see them now. And again, it's 12-month leases, so you'll again see them coming up in approximately March next year. Actually, in end of February come -- it will become due again. And from March, again, we'll see the shift in that when we renew the leases for them. We're really pushing quite hard to ensure that we can get beyond the 12-month leases. So that we don't have this continuous 12-month renewal that we find on our side, but that's the main reason for shifting the profile.

And a couple of questions on disposals. So [indiscernible] from [ Catalyst ] is asking, what is the average exit yields of the concluded disposals and those underway?

Okay. I think it to be -- we've looked at a number of different properties, and each one will have different numbers associated with them. I certainly don't have the numbers now. But what we are seeing is that those who are coming in and putting in offers for these buildings are expecting higher yields. They certainly are expecting higher yields. So that's what we are finding in the market.

[ Andrew Russell from African Equity ] is asking, given the projected disposal of more than 37 properties over the next year, where do you see ICR and LTV in 12 months' time?

So yes, I think when we look at ICR and as well as our loan-to-value ratios, and I think it goes hand in hand with the previous question in terms of what's the exit deal that we find in terms of our disposals. A lot of our properties are vacant in terms of the disposal properties. We have earmarked Bloemfontein and our Free State portfolio as well as the Northern Cape portfolio for a very specific reason. And part of that reason was we had very high vacancies there, but that's not the only reason why that was selected. If you're struggling in those areas to really get tenants to occupy your property there, we did feel that the state of the property that we have at that point in time as well as finding the tenant was ideal for us to dispose of those assets. So therefore, coming to the yield side of it, some of them are not. It's -- if it's a vacant property, what is your yield at that point in time. Then I think -- sorry, Morne, the rest of your question in terms of the -- just repeat if you don't mind.

If you were -- sorry, I just have to go back to the Andrews question.

Andrew's question.

Given the projected disposal of more than 37 properties over the next year, where do you see ICR and LTV in 12 months' time?

Thank you, Morne. So taking that into consideration because we have high vacancies in those assets that we are disposing, we do expect our LTV and our ICR to come back to. So when we talk 12 months, we're talking, let's say, August next year, we expect to be very close to our 50% LTV and our ICR to start carrying much closer to our 2x target.

Then [indiscernible] from [ Salandia Capital ] is asking if you would take a decision to sell all of your property portfolio, how long do you think it will take, in your opinion? And at what discount, if any, which you might have to take under such strategy?

Wow. Wow, interesting question. We certainly are not looking at that as an option right now. So we haven't even looked at how long it would take. But I mean we are very comfortable that the properties are valued at ZAR 7.5 billion. We have debt of about ZAR 4.3 billion. There's more than sufficient equity in the business at this stage. So there is value in the business at this point in time. How long it would take? So, it's very difficult to get assets that are valued, let's say, ZAR 300 million and above, and we have a number of those properties. So if ever we had to sell properties with those kind of values. Just as an individual property, we think for us to get the right value would take a significant amount of time. I think you're talking a good 12 months or so to make sure that you find the right buy, that you get a price that is a lot closer to where we need to be. But yes, if it's a quality asset, then there could be potential buyers that are available out there.

And I think if I can add to that as well, we do believe that our property portfolio is correctly valued. So the ZAR 7.5 billion that is quoted, going to market with such a portfolio in terms of your question, I think inevitably, will mean that everybody is going to think that it's a fire sale, and therefore, there could be discounts to that. But our value absolutely is correct as we believe in terms of the ZAR 7.5 billion that we have on our balance sheet. And I think there's no way that we're thinking that there's discounts that we need to take towards that.

A question for clarity from [indiscernible] is asking is the fair value of the share price equal to the current net asset value per share in your opinion? This seems to be what you answered to a previous question.

So is the fair value of our share price equal to our NAV?

To the current NAV per share.

No, definitely not, Morne. I think there certainly is far more value in our share. However, it's not reflected in the share price. It certainly is reflected in the NAV.

Then just a couple of follow-up questions. Bernard from [indiscernible] is asking on the reversions, are these only related to renewable leases? Or all revised government leases? And what is the impact of these reversions on revenues, your total rental income?

So we have seen the impact of these reversions that we have taken already, and that was approximately ZAR 80 million in the current period. But -- and we've also seen that already up to the February period where we've seen some of that of the Polokwane come through. When we look at these reversions going forward, we do expect to see some reversion going forward in terms of our 12-month leases that we've signed. To get longer-term leases, it means that we are going to have to revert to a certain extent. What's the extent of that reversion? I think it's a balance. So some of our leases will again start escalating again when some of them will start reverting. That exact number I can get Siya to add on.

There's a follow-up question from [ Salek More from BBGI ]. He said that I saw a note that the rentals reduced because the previous rates were higher than market rates. Does that mean the leases initially signed are not at fair market rates?

No. So when those leases were signed, they certainly were market-related. But if you think about it, if you've got a 10-year lease -- when the 10-year lease comes to an end, you will end up with a certain rental, which is a rental that is in the lease agreement. And if you don't renew it, you go for a month-to-month sort of lease and it extends, you still have to be governed by the original lease agreement that was signed. So that is basically what has happened with a lot of those leases. The market is constantly changing. So -- and market rentals, there have been reversions generally in the market. So when we negotiate, we have to negotiate based on the latest rentals at that particular point in time.

Then two questions from Andrew Russell. He's asking, can your competitor, Rebosis, contract with the DPWI while under business rescued? Are there any other positive repercussions of their challenges?

Okay. Maybe let me answer that one. Look, I think what has happened to our competitor is really unfortunate, and we hope that they can bounce back from where they are at the moment. So we certainly do empathize with them, but we certainly cannot speak for them at this point in time. Yes. So that's really -- we're focusing on where we are at and the implementation of our strategy.

Then he's also asking, are you challenging your rates and taxes with municipalities as a result of devaluations of properties? In other words, with rates and taxes should decrease because your property values are lower.

100%. You are 100% correct. This is one of the main areas that we are now putting a lot of effort into. When I spoke about operational efficiency and spoke about how we need to ensure that our costs are in line with what -- with how we are trading as a business. This is definitely one of the focus areas. So we're going back, and we are certainly challenging the various municipalities when it comes to this.

Thank you very much, Siya and Marelise. There are no further questions. Ladies and gentlemen, just a reminder that the recording of the webcast will be uploaded to Delta's website a little bit later on today.

Thank you.

Great. Thank you very much, everybody. Thanks for joining us. We appreciate it.