Delta Africa’s expands footprint with acquisition of Barclays House in Mauritius
Delta Africa, the first multi-listed property fund to offer international property investors direct access to immediate high growth opportunities on the African continent outside of South Africa, announced entry into the Mauritian property market on Friday with the acquisition of Barclays House in Cybercity, Ebene.
“This yield-enhancing acquisition meets our rigid investment criteria of strong counter-party leases, underpinned by long-term contracts,” according to Bronwyn Corbett, CE of Delta Africa.
“We are very excited about our foray into Mauritius and support from the investment community here has been encouraging. Going forward, we plan to continue capitalising on the brand awareness and local knowledge gained in Delta Africa’s existing jurisdictions of Morocco and Mozambique where we have access to a large pipeline of assets,”she said.
Barclays House is a six storey office complex with 150 parking spaces comprising a gross lettable area (GLA) of 7,700 m2 tenanted by Barclays Bank PLC and Clear Ocean Hotel & Resort on long term leases.
The A-grade building is located in Cybercity, Ebene, a sought-after office node 15 km south of the Mauritian capital Port Louis. Other blue chip multinational tenants in the node include Orange, IBM, HSBC, PWC, EY, MCB, Standard Bank and Standard Chartered Bank amongst others.
The purchase consideration amounts to MUR470 million ($13.1 million) at a yield attributable to shareholders of 7.3%. Broll Indian Ocean Limited, external chartered valuers, have attributed a value of MUR490 million ($13.6 million) to the property.
Delta Africa intends to fund the purchase consideration by way of a vendor consideration placement of Delta Africa shares to third parties and debt from a Mauritian bond program. As required under Mauritian law, the agreement takes the form of a compromis de vente. Following the fulfilment of the suspensive conditions, a formal deed of sale will be concluded. The Company anticipates that the acquisition will be implemented with effect from 1 December 2015, once the deed of sale has become unconditional.