News

 Prominent commercial property companies Dipula Property Fund and Mergence Africa Property Fund are set to merge with the objective of listing on the JSE. The merger will create a R1.4 billion diverse commercial property fund with strong empowerment credentials. Dijalo Property Services, which claims to be the country's first full service black-owned property services company, holds a majority stake in Dipula. Mergence Africa Holdings, an independent black-owned and managed financial services firm, owns the controlling interest in Mergence Africa Property Fund. The merged fund will have a property portfolio comprising about 320 000m2 of gross lettable area and serving more than 500 tenants throughout South Africa. Dijalo and Mergence were both born out of owner-managed companies. Saul Gumede, a co-founder of Dijalo Property Services, Izak Petersen of Mergence Africa Holdings, who have provided the strategic and operational direction for their respective funds since inception, are central to the merger transaction and will take up executive positions in the merged entity. Petersen said the intention was to grow the fund through a highly acquisitive strategy and to take best advantage of its unique market position. He said the two companies were already working on a number of transactions to acquire further properties, adding that growing the merged fund's assets underpinned their immediate objective of obtaining a listing on the JSE. Gumede added that the merger would result in increased portfolio diversification and therefore reduced risk, with the combined geographic spread spanning all nine provinces. Petersen said few black economic empowerment (BEE)partnerships had been concluded in the property sector. But he said this transaction was testimony to the fact that BEE companies could work together and create considerable opportunities and make a substantial contribution to the South African property sector.

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 Dijalo, together with Lemay Electrical and Eskom Pension and Provident Fund undertook a project to replace the light fittings at Hampton Park South. The light fitting replacement project was necessary due to the age of the existing flourescent fittings, which were becoming too costly to maintain. The new T5 energy efficient light fittings use less than half of the energy compared to the previous fittings. In addition all of the old 50watt downlighters were replaced with new 5watt LED units. Together with the new light fittings, occupancy sensors have been installed, which automatically switch the office lights off when the space is unoccupied. Since the project was completed in April 2010 we have not had to replace any globes or tubes. Real savings on the electrical consumption have become evident as from May 2010.

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