The story behind Andile Mazwai’s Rebosis resignation

Sesfikile Capital director and asset manager Kundayi Munzara told SA Property Insider on Thursday that the resignation by Mazwai “came as a negative surprise to us as we believed that Andile, who used to be a non-executive board member and chairman of the  investment committee had sufficient institutional knowledge of the business, making him a great successor to the founder Sisa Ngebulana.”

However, Munzara said he believed that Mazwai’s resignation had to do with the board and him not having “a meeting of minds” in terms of business strategy which possibly explains his exit.

“Over the short term we think lots of work needs to be done in terms of letting space at Baywest and a few more pockets at Forest Hill. We believe Mdantsane and Hemmingways continue to dominate and entrench themselves better in their catchment areas.”

He said Rebosis’s office portfolio remained defensive and believed there was limited growth, but also limited risk of vacancies in the portfolio.

“Where we are concerned however is New Frontier where the UK retail environment has seen acceleration in bankruptcies including New Look which NFP has exposure to. We are also concerned with Rebosis’ relatively high loan to value ratio and high percentage of short term funding. We think these two issues need to be resolved before the market regains confidence,”  Munzara said.