Hyprop Investments Limited (HYP.JO) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

The surprise has obviously been the potential MAS transaction. And given that this is the first event since that announcement came out, I'm sure the team will be able to say what they can and what they can't say to the market. Just a reminder to all the guys that are listening, remember, you can send your questions via the chat box. I'll just read them out to the management team to answer. And yes, that's about it from our side. Morné, happy to hand over to you.

Thank you very much, Mweishö, and thank you, Tshepo, for hosting us. I want to say a big thank you for everyone joining us on the call. As said, we will be covering an operational update from January to May 2025. That's for our group, and it will cover the portfolio of South Africa and Eastern Europe. It summarizes the information that we disclosed in the SENS earlier today. And at the end of the presentation, as mentioned, we will be addressing some questions. If we go to the next slide, as a journey, we started as a management company in 2019. And this is more than 6 years ago. The why for the Hyprop is creating spaces and connecting people. And the way we do it is by owning and managing dominant retail centers in mixed-use precincts and key economic nodes in South Africa as well as Eastern Europe. In 2019, when we got involved as a business, we set ourselves a number of key priorities. One of them was repositioning our South African and Eastern Europe portfolios to ensure dominance and maintain relevance of the centers. What we do is annual portfolio reviews to evaluate the case for recycling assets, increase our exposure to favorable areas and also consider new growth opportunities. It was key for us to protect the value of the African portfolio pending an exit. And then also, we focused quite a lot on strengthening the balance sheet. We had some headwinds during this period, namely a number of corporates going into business rescue like Ster-Kinekor and Edgars, there was 2 years of COVID, the South African riots, the wars in Russia as well as Ukraine, Israel and Hamas. And one of the negative things for us is Pick 'n Pay's nonperformance. They are quite a key anchor tenant within our portfolio. Failing infrastructure in South Africa, lack of dollar liquidity in Nigeria and hyperinflation in Ghana as well as Nigeria, even with all these challenges, the team has delivered. We have implemented the Hystead liquidity event by Hyprop, acquiring 4 core Eastern Europe centers. We have acquired these assets at a gross value of EUR 575 million. And as of December, it was valued at EUR 620 million. The malls we've identified as noncore were sold at market value or even above. These sales included Atterbury Value Mart, then the 2 Delta City malls in Podgorica as well as Belgrade. In terms of strengthening the balance sheet, we reduced the consolidated loan-to-value from a peak of 52% in June 2020 to 36.3%. The LTV has reduced further to 34.2% following the receipt of the ZAR 808 million of capital raised in June. We increased our unencumbered assets from ZAR 2 billion to ZAR 5.6 billion. We settled all the dollar equity debt. We reduced our euro equity debt from EUR 403 million to EUR 87 million as well as improving our corporate credit rating. We acquired Table Bay Mall and started the Phase 2 extension at Somerset Mall. These transactions are aligned with our intention to increase our exposure in the Western Cape. Various repositioning initiatives were completed within our South Africa as well as our Eastern Europe portfolios. On the South African portfolio, we improved the tenant mix by securing Checkers FreshX as the new anchor tenant at the various malls. We reduced our energy costs with the installation of solar plants at all our Gauteng centers as well as Table Bay Mall. We secured full backup power at all our centers in South Africa. We also installed 3 days' backup water at all our Gauteng malls. We successfully rightsized all the Edgars stores in our portfolio. All of these changes improved tenants performance by increasing the tenant turnover and reducing the cost of occupancy. The effort ratio in our South African portfolio has reduced to 8.2% compared to 11.3% in June 2020. On our Eastern Europe portfolio, we completed the 2-year redevelopment of Skopje City Mall in North Macedonia. At The Mall in Sofia, we completed the hyper conversion and increased the center to a total of 61,000 square meters, and we also upgraded the food court and the restrooms. At City Center one West, we have recently upgraded the food court. In September, we implemented the sale of the remaining 4 centers in Africa to Lango. And as part of the transaction, we sold the whole African structure, and we also sold all the exposure to the in-country debt into Africa. I will hand over now to Brett, which will give us an update on the financial analysis.

Thanks very much, Morné, and good morning, everybody. We can go to the next slide, Boitu. The group's balance sheet remains strong alongside its key treasury metrics and our liquidity. The LTV ratio has improved from 36.3% in December to 34.2% following receipt of the ZAR 808 million of capital that was raised in June 2025. Our interest cover ratio remains stable at 2.6x, in line with the result for December 2024. And these metrics provide ample headroom compared to our banking covenants and give the group significant gearing capacity and flexibility going forward. Next slide, thanks, Boitu. I've spoken before about how we prioritize monthly cash collections. As can be seen from these 2 graphs, cash collections for the period January 2024 to May 2025 exceeded 100% of billings in both of our portfolios, mainly as a result of the collection of turnover rentals up for the period ending December 2024 in the Eastern European portfolio. These collections underpin the group's distributable income and ensure that distributable income remains cash backed and available for distribution to shareholders without having to borrow to do so. Thanks, Boitu. If you refer back to the borrowings maturity profile presented with the December 2024 results, there was a bond of ZAR 350 million, which matured in the 6 months to June 2025. This bond was settled and subsequently refinanced via the DCM. In April 2025, we postponed our planned bond auction due to the extreme volatility arising from the U.S. administration's trade war and the impasse of the non-approval of South African national budget and tensions within the government of national unity. We were one of the first REITs to postpone our bond auction but remained intent on returning to the bond market when the volatility subsided. Following inquiries from investors after the postponement of the bond auction and not knowing how long the volatility could last, we successfully raised ZAR 450 million in 3.5-year and 5-year terms and at good margins through a private placement under our DMTN program. We returned to the bond market in May 2025 and raised a further ZAR 750 million in 3.5- and 5-year terms via a public auction at margins of 117 basis points and 125 basis points, respectively. These are the lowest margins we've ever achieved, and we're very grateful for the support received from bond market investors in both the private placements and public auctions. Thank you very much. If we return back to that borrowings maturity profile from December, you may recall that there was nearly ZAR 4 billion of borrowings, which matured in the 2026 financial year. Rand-denominated term and revolving credit facilities, totaling ZAR 1.7 billion, have been refinanced since December at lower margins, the savings are between 31 and 85 basis points and the weighted average duration of the new facilities is 4 years. EUR 5 million of the EUR 20 million equity debt, which matures or was due to mature in July 2025 has been settled from existing cash in the European portfolio. And the remaining EUR 15 million has been refinanced for 18 months with a reduction of 18 basis points in the margin. The euro equity debt is currently only EUR 73 million as none of the revolving credit facilities are drawn. Of the remaining ZAR 1.9 billion of debt, which matures in the 2026 financial year, ZAR 750 million relates to publicly held bonds, which we intend refinancing through the bond market at the appropriate time, particularly following the success of the bond auction in May. Most of the bank debt and bonds held by banks, which mature in the latter part of 2026 will be refinanced, and we will engage with the lenders on these refinance initiatives following completion of our audited results for June 2025. In addition to raising capital in the bond market, ZAR 808 million of equity was raised through an accelerated book build in early June 2025 by issuing 19 million shares at ZAR 42.50 each. The financial effects of this capital raise are distributable income per share neutral on an annualized basis and assuming that the funds are used to settle debt, which is where they've been deployed for now. The capital is earmarked for use in the potential MAS transaction. If not used for the MAS transaction, it will be applied to asset management initiatives, organic growth opportunities, further solar PV projects and new investments in the existing portfolios, all of which should generate better returns for the group. Following the capital raise, the group's liquidity position remains very healthy with ZAR 1.2 billion of cash and ZAR 2.2 billion in available bank facilities. The spread of borrowings between lenders and different currencies remains stable and well diversified. The 2 graphs at the bottom of this slide include the cash from the capital raise. Thanks, Boitu. At 31st of May, 83% of the group's interest rate exposure was hedged with an average hedge duration of 1.5 years. 65% by nominal value of the rand interest rate hedges comprise interest rate caps and collars, providing some benefits from the reduction in interest rates. The balance of the hedges are interest rate swaps. The average cost of borrowings is anticipated to be lower in 2026 than it was in 2025, mainly due to the benefits accruing from the interest rate caps and collars. Thanks, Boitu. In terms of the group's payout ratio, as previously announced, the Board has decided to increase the payout ratio due to the significant progress that's been made towards achieving our key strategic objectives and the strength of our balance sheet. For the 2025 financial year, the interim dividend was increased to 95% of distributable income from the 2 portfolios -- sorry, the interim dividend was 95% of the South African portfolio. An interim dividend of ZAR 430 million was paid in April 2025. The full year dividend has been increased from 75% of distributable income for the 2 portfolios in 2024 to 80% for 2025. The final dividend will be declared when the group's year-end results are published, and the Board will review and intends to progressively increase the dividend payout ratio over time. The increase in the dividend payout ratio will effectively compensate for the increase in the number of shares in issue as a result of the capital raise and the dividend for 2025 is expected to be higher than the dividend was in 2024. With that, I give you back to Morné.

Thank you very much, Brett. Now we're going to look at our operational performance. The repositioning strategies, rightsizing of stores, improving the anchors and ensuring we meet our shoppers' needs are definitely paying off. This is clear looking at the trading performance over the last 4 years. The tenant turnover increased by 5.9% in the last 12 months. The better turnover of tenants on our portfolio has reduced our effort ratio to 8.2%. The annualized trading density increased by 6.8% and foot count only increased by 0.9% in the last 12 months. Looking at the following slide, you can look at the last 5 months trading performance compared over a 3-year period, and we can see the growth in all the trading stats. In the last 5 months, the tenant turnover has increased by 7% compared to the 5 months in 2024. We see very good growth in May. Tenant turnover increased by 11% and trading density by 15.1%. The rightsizing of Edgars have contributed to the improvement of the trading density. For example, the Edges store at Canal Walk delivered the same turnover on half the space. In February, we experienced some reduction in footfall and vehicle count, but both these shown very good growth in May again. If we're looking at our leasing activities, the positive rent reversions continue. Looking at the table at the top left on the slide, we can see good positive rent reversions on our offices with a positive overall rent reversion of 10.2%. The new deals in the retail show growth of 13.5%. And for the overall portfolio, we had positive reversions of 2.9%. Looking at the table on the bottom left, you can see the successful reduction in our office vacancies to 16.9% and our retail vacancies increased to 3.9%, which is still well below the market norm. This was driven by the rightsizing of our Edgars stores on the portfolio and reducing the size of the Pick 'n Pay at Woodlands Boulevard. The vacancy gives us the opportunity to find new tenants to meet our shoppers' demand. We have a slight increase in our weighted average lease expiry to 3.6 years. At the next slide, we're looking at some of the projects we have completed or undergo. At Rosebank Mall, we have completed the first battery storage facility as well as a dual-fuel generator using gas as well as diesel. The project was completed on the 1st of May 2025. The system optimizes the energy mix and reduces the use of normal electricity during the peak periods and thereby reducing the cost of the overall energy bill. It allows us to use the full benefit of our solar due to the ability to store the solar energy. The cost of using the gas compared to diesel with the generators is also much lower. Provided all the actual benefits is in line with our expectations, the intention is to roll this out on the rest of the portfolio. On the next slide, we look at Hyde Park Corner, where we have been replacing the old Pick 'n Pay store with a brand-new Checkers FreshX. The store is under construction and Checkers will be trading on the 1st of August. We are very excited about the new store, and we believe it will activate the ground floor. Since Pick 'n Pay closed down, the vehicle count has not reduced, which shows that Pick 'n Pay was not catering for the Hyde Park shopper. This will be the fifth Checkers FreshX we opened within our South African portfolio and the only mall that does not have a Checkers as anchor store is Clearwater Mall. Now we look at Somerset Mall expansion. The Phase 2 expansion at Somerset Mall are progressing well. We will add additional 5,500 square meters of GLA. The expansion will improve the flow in the center by creating a new link through the current Edgars store to the Game stores. Edgars will be rightsized and relocated as an anchor in a new section of the center. We will also rightsize Game to improve its trading density. The existing Edgars will be converted to an entertainment offering and a new food court that is to replace our food court, which we have used to do the Checkers FreshX store. The new tenants to be introduced for this section would be affordable luxury and at leisure stores. Some of the tenants we have secured to date is New Balance, Burnt, Curve Gear, and Napapijri, which is an international outdoor apparel brand. As part of the project, we also upgrade the centers, restrooms and replace all the old dated tiles. At CapeGate, looking at the next slide, we have been working on a master plan to expand the mall and to redevelop the surrounding satellite sites. A key requirement were to ensure we keep control of what is being developed on the satellite sites as well as securing annuity income. The site opposite Mediclinic, we sold to Mediclinic for a potential day hospital and consultation rooms. The final design needs to be approved by Hyprop to ensure it fits into our master plan. On the bottom 3 sites, we have secured a 24-month exclusivity agreement with SOM and Giflo to develop 3 office buildings. The deal has been done on a leasehold basis, and the intention is to secure tenants and develop the top structures. They have received a number of queries from some well-known corporates that want to relocate here. The ideal situation for CapeGate, it is quite in the middle, and actually, given the traffic situation in the Western Cape, it is an ideal location to actually have some corporate head office. Similar to Mediclinic, the final design and need to be approved by Hyprop and aligned to the master plan. All the development risk and ongoing ownership of the top structures will be the risk of SOM and Giflo. Hyprop will take no risk on these developments and we'll get an upfront land payment and an ongoing land rental with the developments as they complete. Now looking at some future projects. At Somerset Mall, as I mentioned, we have completed Phase 1. That was the new Checkers FreshX and what we've done is also upgrade the food court supporting the cinemas. The Phase 2 is an additional 5,500 squares, and it is to improve the flow, rightsize Game and Edgars as well as replace the food court, which was used to develop Checkers FreshX. Phase 3 will be a further extension of about 15,700 square meters and will link the current Woolworths entrance and the Pick 'n Pay entrance. All of this is done on an additional tenant demand. The tenant mix will focus on new fashion tenants, home and furniture tenants as well as casual and formal dining. The extension will further enhance the flow in the center. After the completion of Phase 2 and 3, the center will have a total size of 91,000 square meters. At The Glen, we have agreed to reduce the store and this creates an ideal opportunity to improve the flow within the center and to reduce the store and to create an opportunity to improve the flow within the center. It will also give us an opportunity to secure some further line stores and improve the tenant mix. This is in line with our master plan for The Glen. As part of the project, we want to increase the size of the back stores and activate the back end of the center, which was not trading well by improving the flows as well as improving the view lines. This you can see on the green arrows on the plan. We also want to improve the flow from the parking deck to the escalators in the back, and that you can see on the red arrow on the plan. This will be Phase 1. What we are planning for Phase 2 is to improve the vertical flow from this level of the center to the ground floor, which is anchored by Woolworths and Checkers FreshX. At CapeGate, as I mentioned, we are busy with the office developments in the back, which is driven by SOM and Giflo. One of our priorities at CapeGate is to improve the look and feel of the center, improve the sense of arrival and to also improve the offering of 2 of our 4 anchor stores. We are planning an extension of about 9,700 squares on the southern side, which will complement the office development. The focus in tenant mix will be casual and formal dining, new national fashion tenants as well as mono brands. Now looking at Eastern Europe. The portfolio continues to deliver strong operational performance. The tenant turnover has increased by 6.4% for rolling 12 months until May. The effort ratio reduced to 9.3% compared to 10.7% in 2022. Footfall has been negatively impacted, and that was mainly due to the non-trading Sundays in Croatia as well as some store boycotts due to the rising food prices. Vehicle count has increased by 5.6%. On the next slide, looking at the 4 months' trading over the 3 comparative years, we can see growth in all the key performance measures, except for footfall that dropped in the first 4 months with a slight increase in May. We are extremely happy with the ongoing good performance of our Eastern Europe portfolio. Now looking at the leasing activities. Looking at the table at top right of the slide, we can see positive rent reversions on renewals was 11.7% on 7.9% of the total GLA. On new deals, we had positive reversions of 5.7%, although it was only on 2.4% of the total GLA. Combinedly, on new deals and renewals, we had a positive reversion of 10.3%. We have a reduction in vacancy to only 0.1%. The weighted average lease expiry of the portfolio is 3.4 years, and 33.9% of the GLA expires after 2029. Now looking at the next slide. We see a potential transaction with MAS in line with our diversification strategy, and this could, I believe, be a potential game changer for Hyprop. It is our intention to secure a controlling stake, and we will pursue this via a conditional voluntary bid. We will be offering MAS shareholders the option to exchange their MAS shares for Hyprop shares as well as cash. We have an exceptional team in Eastern Europe, and we believe we are well positioned to drive value creation through collaboration with the MAS property and asset management teams in the medium to long term. We also can leverage our experience of strong corporate governance, operational strength, access to funding and treasury expertise and a proven ability to resolve complex shareholders and joint venture arrangements. We believe the transaction could be a win-win deal for Hyprop as well as the MAS shareholders. To support the cash portion of the voluntary bid, we raised a total of ZAR 808 million, as mentioned by Brett. The voluntary bid is subject to several conditions, particularly approval of Hyprop shareholders to protect the interest of Hyprop and its shareholders. If these conditions are not met, Hyprop will not proceed with the transaction. Updates regarding the transaction will be provided in due course. Now if we're looking ahead, we are still set to meet our guidance of our distributable income. Unfortunately, due to the 19 million additional shares that was issued in June with the accelerated book build, we will not meet the distributable income per share guidance. These additional shares are not time-weighted when calculating our distributable income per share, and we will need to adjust our guidance down to minus 1% to a positive 2%. We are very well positioned to deliver significant growth in the next financial year. This will be achieved through improved performance of our property portfolios, the benefits from solar and energy projects as they come on to stream, excellent treasury management initiatives and the reduction in the interest cost and then also obviously deploying the ZAR 808 million cash. We will achieve this even if the MAS transaction does not proceed. We have increased our payout ratio to 80%, as mentioned by Brett. And given the increase in payout ratio, you will still get an increase in the dividend payment this year. We have made good progress to recycle one of our Gauteng assets. And hopefully, we will be able to announce something in the next few weeks. We are actively looking for other growth opportunities in Eastern Europe other than the MAS transaction. On the South African portfolio, we want to pursue some further organic growth opportunities, as I mentioned, at Somerset Mall and CapeGate. Both these centers are located in a very good and strong development corridors. We are busy with a few projects on our South African portfolio. We have taken the strategic decision to use our own capital to install the on-site solar projects rather than using power purchase agreements. These projects gives us exceptional returns, it's core to our business, and it will also retain the flexibility we want to integrate with our battery solutions. Hopefully, in the second phase of the solar at The Glen and CapeGate will start in the next few months. We have submitted the regulatory submissions for both Somerset Mall and Canal Walk. At Hyde Park Corner, we want to complete the Phase 2 of Workshop17 and complete the Checkers FreshX store. The focus will remain on Pick 'n Pay and Game as well as Woolworths to see how we can improve the operational performance in our portfolio. In Croatia, you can't resell electricity without the energy activity license, and we want to finalize the necessary waste we will be able to implement the solar in Croatia. We also want to be busy with the retailing of CC one West in Croatia. We have submitted our group applications to secure additional rights on our 2 Croatian malls. And just to say this group application is the first time it has opened since COVID. So we are very positive that we will secure our rights in the near future. And with that, we can open the floor for some Q&A. Thank you very much.

Awesome. Thanks so much, Morné and Brett. That was quite informative. Just a reminder to everyone, and I think as I can see by the chat function, people are already aware, that is the preferred way to send your questions through, and I'll read them out to the management team. Just to kick us off, just 2 questions for me, right? I'd like to understand why the May book build is driving share dilution when you had the option to raise an antecedent dividend or even prevent the newly issued shares from receiving this final dividend. I'm just wondering why you didn't apply what other REITs would have done in that situation.

Brett, do you want to cover that?

I think just given the intended use of the proceeds, and obviously, there's a benefit to be received if we do the MAS transaction, that we would hopefully would enhance the earnings going forward. But antecedent dividends is not something we've sort of done in the past. Whenever we've done our DRIPs, we have not done antecedent dividends. Everybody suffered that dilution. So we're stuck with that past treatment. I think to the fact that we can increase the dividend itself, because of the increase in the payout ratio, we felt that these shareholders were not going to be prejudiced by receiving a lower dividend going into the new financial year.

Okay. Understood. And then just briefly with regards to the MAS transaction, obviously, it's ongoing and you provided some color on it. But could you provide any more color, particularly for those Hyprop shareholders who are maybe opposed to it or feel as though this might be complicating the business? Anything for those types of investors?

What we see as an opportunity, as I mentioned, it is a good opportunity and it's aligned with our diversification strategy. It's actually going to give us an opportunity to get exposure into Romania and Poland, which we don't have at the moment. Some of the malls is also in Bulgaria. So it actually supports that. I think we see an ideal opportunity of something that is for Hyprop shareholder in line with what we want to do. I believe at the current proposed swap ratios, which we are talking about, it could be quite accretive for us, and it's aligned to what we think we can do. I think there is some complications. Obviously, the arrangement with the DJV, I think there's a lot of uncertainty around that. And obviously, we need to get clarity around a lot of those agreements before we can proceed on a transaction. So therefore, I think if you can manage it well and you can do it at the right swap ratios, I think it could be a beneficial transaction for Hyprop shareholders. And what I can definitely say to our Hyprop shareholders is we are going to do this transaction that's the best benefit for us. Obviously, we are doing this offer subject to a number of conditions. And if these conditions are not met, we are not going to buy share. So that is the key thing for us. We want to mitigate risks. We're not going to jump into the water without knowing where we're jumping. But we think with calculating our risk, mitigating some of those risks, this could be a very good transaction for Hyprop.

Okay. Perfect. So we've got a question from Jonathan du Toit from Oyster Catcher. He says Morné, what is causing the negative foot count in Eastern Europe? Is it one particular center? Is it due to new nearby competing stores coming online?

No, it's predominantly relating to Croatia. As I mentioned in the presentation, it is due to the fact that you've got non-trading Sundays. So obviously, your footfall falls due to that. But what will happen is people are spending more per visit. So our turnover is still up, although our footfall is down. So your basket size has effectively increased. And then there was also the boycotts against certain supermarkets due to the increase of food prices. And that obviously also had a negative impact on footfall.

Okay. Understood. We have another question from Luke Potgieter from Fairtree. He says, please, could you provide more color on the strong trading densities and tenant turnover we saw in April and May for the SA portfolio? Is this expected to continue? How much of this improvement can be attributed to stronger consumer?

I think it's more a combination of the 2. I do think we are working quite hard to make sure our customers come to our shopping centers. And I think as a combination of that, that is why our trading has been improving, and that has been a focus area for the last 5 years. And I think it's just starting to pay off. What are key for us is ensuring our anchors work. We want to make it a one-stop shop where you come to our malls. And I think that has played out as a positive in terms of the performance of our tenants. And I do think it will continue. Obviously, I sometimes wonder myself where the consumers are getting the money to spend, but while it's going well, we must be happy, I suppose.

Can I just add to that? I think one of the contributing factors is the downsizing of the Edgars stores. And some of those Edgars stores have maintained their turnovers in space of roughly half of what they used to have. So that's a big positive contribution.

Yes, effectively, the trading density on those stores has doubled.

Okay. Understood. A question from Mahir. He says, at what euro-ZAR rate have you hedged your European dividend from the Eastern European portfolio? Have you taken any forward cover in respect of FY '26 euro dividend from the current EE portfolio?

So we've hedged about 2/3 of what we anticipate the dividend from the European portfolio will be for this financial year at a sort of blended rate of about ZAR 20.50 to the euro. And we've hedged about 1/3 of the euro dividend for 2026 that we anticipate getting. I don't have that hedge rate to hand. I can get it for you.

Okay. Thanks, Brett. Follow-up question from Mahir. Given the contraction in margins, reduction in base interest rates, reduction in European debt and expiring hedges, where do you expect the group funding cost to trend going forward?

Sorry, could you just repeat the question for me? I lost you in the middle of it.

No problem. So given the contraction in margins, reduction in base interest rates, reduction in European debt and expiring hedges, where do you expect the group funding cost to trend going forward?

So we think into 2026, we'll have between sort of 0.4% and 0.6% reduction in the borrowing costs in South Africa and Europe, respectively. That's based on where we see the current swap curves and where our current hedges are running at the moment. And that's without assuming further interest rate cuts in South Africa.

Okay. Final question from Mahir says, so what are you currently earning on the ZAR 808 million that you've raised? Should the MAS voluntary offer not proceed, what is the expected return or yield on initiatives mentioned?

So currently, we've deployed most of that cash to repaying our revolving credit facilities. So effectively, we're earning the borrowing rate of roughly 9.5%. If we invest it in cash, as we generate more cash, I think our cash deposit rate is running at about 7.5% at the moment. In terms of the yield, I think the yield varies quite significantly depending on what the project is. If you take solar, you're earning in the 20% type yields on a solar project. The yield from some of the battery projects is also expected to be significant good double-digit returns there. If we're applying the capital into the Somerset Mall expansion, that return, if I remember correctly, was calculated at roughly about mid-teens in terms of percentages. So it varies quite a bit, but it's certainly more than the borrowing cost that we are saving at the moment. And that's why we say the earnings impact of the capital raise was earnings neutral on a distributable income per share basis if we simply use the money to repay the existing kind of debt that we've got. It wasn't going to be a negative effect on the distributable income per share.

Got you. So we have a question from Francois du Toit from Anchor. The Hyde Park Mall Pick 'n Pay vacancy added 0.7% at 1H '25. Can you remind us of the timing of when Shoprite will fill the space? What was the impact of this vacancy during the 5-month period relative to what rents will be once Shoprite takes occupation?

Basically, Checkers is only opening on the 1st of August. So it's been vacant up to now, but I don't think we have all the exact -- I don't have all those details for front row at this point in time. And it's not common in the market at the moment.

Fair enough. Follow-up from Francois. You mentioned that the resizing of various Edgars stores has helped improve trading density. What was trading density growth on a like-for-like basis? Can you also discuss the overall expected impact on rent? And how much CapEx involved with such changes?

The CapEx is not that much. And again, we haven't disclosed this to market. As we mentioned, what we have seen in terms of trading densities, it doubles up. And I can't now recall off the top of my head what is the actual trading densities for Edgars, but it is quite well double digits -- or double what it was, but I think it's quite good. It could be anything, and I'm shooting from the hip here, around ZAR 3,000 to ZAR 4,000 per square meter. Then what is happening in terms of the tenants we replaced them with, actually, we are actually getting much better rentals on that because you actually take -- you take, for example, Canal Walk. You take a floor back, we put new tenants on the top floor, and that's about 5,000 square, you can actually put about 3 tenants in that space, and we are getting it at much better rentals. So you're actually meeting shopper demand in terms of tenant mix and you are getting better rentals. And the TIs we have to provide for that is more than sufficiently, what do you say? The return we get from the higher rentals is paying for those TIs we have to spend.

A question from Fayyaz Mottiar from Sanlam. What sort of pricing are you looking at in the MAS transaction? Is it better than what Prime Kapital is proposing?

We will disclose that as and when we need to.