SA, US and Poland-focused Emira ups dividends above inflation

Emira Property Fund – the only SA real estate investment trust (Reit) invested in US retail property, and which also has exposure to the SA and Polish markets – on Thursday reported stable growth in distributions and Dividends Per Share (DPS) around the 4% mark for FY2026.

While this is up, the performance is lower than many of its JSE-listed peers, with the fund delivering 3.7% growth in distributable income per share to 129.53 cents, and DPS growth of 4.1%, to 129.01c.

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This is just above SA’s inflation rate which averaged 3.2% in 2025 (representing most of its financial year), came in at 3.1% in March 2025, and jumped to 4% in April in the wake of the Middle East Conflict resulting in a surge in global fuel prices. Emira’s financial year ends in March.

The group, which also has a stake in SA Corporate Real Estate, and recently bought a stake in another JSE-listed fund Octodec, nevertheless described its latest financial performance as ‘robust’ and ‘pleasing’ its media release and results presentation to investors on Thursday.

“Distributable income for FY2026 is R648.1 million compared to R642.2 million for the prior year. After taking the adjustments to reflect the cash backed position into account, Emira’s Board of Directors has declared a final dividend of 64.61c per share for the six months to 31 March 2026 [H2 2026: 61.5c]. The total dividend per share for the year ended 31 March 2026 is 129.01c [FY 2025: 123.89c],” Emira noted in its results filing on Sens.

Its distributions and DPS were affected by disposals of assets in the US and SA, which saw the group having cash in hand of around R1.6 billion at year end. However, worth noting, is that the company undertook share buybacks during the year, which would have bumped up its DPS metric.

Other financial and operational highlights:

• Net asset value per share 2 094.9c – up 1.3%
• Loan to value (LTV) improved to 30.2%
• Commercial vacancies improved to 4.1%
• Residential occupancy (stabilised portfolio) improved to 97.9%
• Property disposals concluded: Transferred R1.3 billion
• US Investment disposals: Transferred $64.8 million; To be transferred $14.2 million

Emira’s share price