BPOPF eyes Tirelo House
Pauline Dikuelo | Friday December 4, 2015 11:00
According to a statement from the Competition Authority (CA), BPOPF notified them on the proposed acquisition of Lot 1140-1145.
“The CA has received a merger notification for the proposed acquisition of Tirelo House from Mall Properties by BPOPF,” reads the statement.
Mall Properties, the target firm, is a company incorporated under the Laws of Botswana and it owns Tirelo House, which earns rental income through office space leasing. The Directors of Mall Properties are Haroun Joosab Ebrahim (South African), Hawa Abdullah (Pakistani) and Sayed Haider Hussain Naqui (British). On the other hand, BPOPF, which is the acquiring firm, is a pension fund registered under the Pension Fund and Provident Funds Act for public service employees. The BPOPF set up two property funds being Letsema Property Fund I and Letsema Property Fund II as property investment vehicles or asset classes and it is through Letsema Property Fund II that the acquisition is taking place.
As Botswana’s largest pension fund, BPOPF has 35 percent of its funds invested in Botswana through equities, bonds, property and private equity. Roughly 65 percent of the funds are invested offshore in vehicles such as equities, bonds and alternatives.
Under a new investment strategy, BPOPF has introduced private equity and infrastructure funds locally through two fund managers, Messidor and Fleming Asset Management. Last year, the fund launched a P800 million local private equity fund; P500 million of which was warded to Capital Management Botswana (CMB).
Under the property portfolio, the fund recently announced it had invested P300 million to build the Hilton Garden Inn Hotel at the new CBD. BPOPF has also boosted its property portfolio after it bought two Francistown properties from PrimeTime for P71 million. Recently, BPOPF bought a 20 percent stake in oil company Puma Energy Botswana for P300 million.