Vusumuzi Dube
Judith Phiri, Business Reporter
THE Insurance and Pensions Commission (IPEC) has reaffirmed its commitment to support initiatives aimed at broadening and deepening capital markets to promote long-term savings by the insurance and pensions industry for socio-economic development.
Such initiatives include the Revitus Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT), a collective investment scheme set up by the National Railways of Zimbabwe Contributory Pension Fund (NRZCPF) which will strategically repurpose commercial buildings across the country into modern and environmentally friendly buildings that generate high rental income.
In a speech read on behalf of the IPEC Commissioner, Dr Grace Muradzikwa by the actuarial manager, Mr Patrick Gombe at the launch of the Revitus REIT in Bulawayo on Wednesday, she commended the launching of a new class of investment assets.
“IPEC commends the Fund for this great initiative as we cannot comprehensively discuss pension industry growth without mentioning innovation. We understand the purpose of the event is to launch the REIT and create appetite (through an Initial Public Offer (IPO)) for potential investors to come on board to make investments into this new asset,” she said.
She said as part of their regional integration efforts under the SADC Finance and Investment Protocol, Zimbabwe is expected to benchmark its capital market development activities with developments at regional and international level.
Dr Muradzikwa said as IPEC, they hope that the local REIT market will deepen and commended the NRZCPF Revitus REIT Fund in taking the early lead in terms of innovation and development.
She added: “The Commission is impressed with this new innovation and development given the limited investment options that were available for different investors to find alternative assets for new and incoming contributions. The Commission is particularly impressed with the NRZCPF REIT, given the long journey that we walked with our capital markets stakeholders in lobbying for tax incentives on REIT.”
Dr Muradzikwa said the REIT has been granted a prescribed asset status and they hope this will improve general compliance to prescribed asset status by both the NRZCPF and other institutional investors such as insurance companies and other pension funds.
She said it will be listed on the ZSE, increasing liquidity and tradability of the investment among other developments.
“IPEC is confident that the REIT will assist in regaining confidence in the pensions industry through widening investment options for pension funds, assist in unitising the Fund’s real estate and enhance liquidity of pension funds so that they can discharge benefit payment obligations timeously, among other key benefits.
Zimbabwe Stock Exchange (ZSE) chief executive officer (CEO), Mr Justin Bgoni said the growth of the ZSE will come from new products and services such as REITs.
“The Zimbabwean capital markets has seen a growth of interest in the instrument and the listing of the Revitus REIT is indeed a welcome development to our market. The Revitus REIT will become the second REIT on our exchange,” he said.
The first REIT to list on the ZSE was Tigere REIT, affiliated to Terrace Africa Asset Management on 01 December 2022. A REIT is a regulated investment vehicles that enables the issuer to pool investors’ funds for the purpose of investing in real estate.
Bongani Ndlovu