RMB Holdings (RMH), which has been monetising its assets, said yesterday it had declared a special dividend of 3.5 cents per share following the disposal in April of the Divercity urban renewal property company.
RMH, which has RMH Property as its last major asset, had also paid out a R327 million special dividend on January 29, 2024. Prior to that, a special dividend of R2 billion was paid on October 10, 2022.
RMH has to date returned R3.48bn in cash to its shareholders since June 2020, when it changed its strategy from being a long-term investor to one of monetising its assets. On June 2020, the market capitalisation of RMH was R2.4bn.
“Management continues to explore opportunities to monetise the remaining assets in the portfolio in a manner that best promotes value creation for its shareholders,” the company directors said at the release of the interim results yesterday.
RMH’s share price on March 28 of 36c represented a 53% discount to the net asset value of 76.7c per share (March 31, 2023: 100.3c per share), which management said was not unusual compared to other South African listed property companies, which trade at an average discount to net asset value of around 30%. RMH’s share price traded at 41c on the JSE yesterday afternoon.
RMH’s net asset value decreased to R1.07bn as at March 31, from R1.45bn as at September 30, 2023.
This was mainly as a result of the net asset value of Atterbury Property Holdings remaining static, the payment of the special dividend in January 2024 and the further decrease in Divercity’s fair value, following the repurchase of RMH’s interest for R50m on April 12, 2024.
As at March 31, 2024, the group held R133m of liquidity comprising cash, cash equivalents and listed unit trusts.
RMH Property’s remaining major assets currently are a 38.5% stake in property company Atterbury Property Holdings and control of the Integer property company. The interim results showed net asset value per share fell 24% to 76.7c from 100.3c.
BUSINESS REPORT