RMB funds Oryx Properties’ expansion

Client challenge

Oryx Properties was established to enable Namibians to invest in the country’s developing property sector. It swiftly progressed to become the first property company listed in Namibia. 

Over the years, Oryx evolved to become a significant local property player, specifically in the Windhoek area, with its Maerua Mall asset and exposure to the Windhoek real estate market. 

Oryx’s mission is to diversify geographically and across various property sectors, including investing in unlisted and opportunistic property transactions.

This mission has resulted in an aggressive strategy to grow its property portfolio from NAD3bn to NAD4.5bn by 2026. 

The first step in this growth was to acquire the Dunes Mall shopping centre in Walvis Bay from Atterbury for NAD630mil. This acquisition required specific funding solutions, which RMB provided.

The RMB's solution

RMB provided debt funding of NAD400mil to Oryx to realise the acquisition. RMB also refinanced an existing NAD100mil loan to Oryx as part of the overall transaction, resulting in total debt funding of NAD500mil. 

RMB identified the opportunity to structure the transaction in a manner that allowed the bank to deploy preference share funding into the deal, which yielded significant cost of funding benefits to the client. The deal is priced about 60bps (0.6%) lower than the Oryx benchmark cost of funding. The resultant deal is the best priced debt facility in the history of Oryx. 

RMB’s preference share funding facility, which was fully disclosed in the investor prospectus, was very well received by Oryx’s investors in Namibia and abroad and provided confidence to the market. The attractive funding economics were also partly responsible for the successful equity raise Oryx embarked on to obtain the equity capital required for the transaction.  Oryx’s NAD320mil equity raise is one of the largest capital raises in the Namibian Stock Exchange to date.

Client Enablement

As a total return-based property fund at the forefront of the listed sector, Oryx has a core focus on responsible investments. By assisting with this deal, RMB has enabled them to realise their vision of nurturing their Namibian heritage and using innovative and progressive solutions to create sustainable economic, social, and environmental benefits for their stakeholders.