SA REIT Association unveils Third Edition Best Practice Recommendations
SA REIT Association unveils Third Edition Best Practice Recommendations as global capital sharpens focus on South African real estate investment trusts
Updated guide raises transparency and comparability across the sector, taking its place alongside the Global REIT Alliance’s reporting frameworks at a moment of renewed institutional appetite
The South African Real Estate Investment Trust Association (SA REIT Association) has released the Third Edition of its Best Practice Recommendations (BPR), the framework that governs how every member of the SA REIT Association measures and reports its financial and operational performance. The updated guide is effective for reporting periods commencing on or after 1 January 2026 and is available for download from the SA REIT Association website.
Six years in the making, the Third Edition is the most substantive update to the framework since 2019. It arrives with renewed access by South African real estate investment trusts of the equity capital markets, while institutional underweight positions narrow towards a decade low and as the sector’s total market capitalisation moves through the R350 billion mark. It also arrives as the SA REIT Association took up its place as the South African member of the Global REIT Alliance (GRA), the international coalition that relaunched under its new name in September 2025. Members collectively represent companies that manage approximately 98% of the world’s roughly USD 2 trillion in REIT market capitalisation.
A decade of disciplined disclosure
First published in 2016 and updated in November 2019, the BPR has become a defining feature of the South African real estate investment trust sector. It establishes the common language by which member REITs, their auditors, sector analysts and the wider investor community measure operational performance, balance sheet strength and property fundamentals on a comparable basis. The Third Edition has been compiled with input from leading sector analysts, corporate advisors and SA REIT Association members.
The update comes as the Association marks more than a decade of impact in the sector and as the institutional capital base has visibly broadened. South African real estate investment trusts raised over R11.4 billion in fresh capital through heavily oversubscribed bookbuilds in 2025 and the average discount to Net Asset Value (NAV) has narrowed from deeply negative levels to between 3% and 4%. The case for a sharper, more practical disclosure framework has rarely been clearer.
What the Third Edition changes
The Third Edition tightens and expands the previous framework in several material respects.
SA REIT Funds from Operations (FFO) per share is formalised as the primary non-International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) performance measure, replacing distributable earnings per share. The new metric prescribes twenty-one specified reconciling adjustments to IFRS profit or loss, covering fair value adjustments, deferred tax movements, straight-lining lease adjustments, gains or losses on disposal, foreign exchange and hedging items and non-recurring transactions. Company-specific adjustments remain permissible but must be clearly defined and reconciled. The intent is straightforward. An income return on invested capital that investors can read across the sector without manually investigating each set of accounts.
SA REIT NAV per share is recast as a tangible measure, adjusting reported NAV to fair value where the cost model has been applied, excluding goodwill and intangible assets and removing deferred tax that would only crystallise on the sale of an asset. The metric closely resembles Tangible NAV and aligns South African disclosure with the way international institutional investors read REIT balance sheets.
Cost-to-income ratios are standardised on both a gross and a net basis, ending years of inconsistent presentation across the sector. The all-in weighted average cost of debt is reframed to capture the full economic cost of funding, incorporating the impact of interest rate derivatives, cross-currency interest rate swaps and amortised transaction costs imputed into the effective interest rate. The new framework explicitly accommodates the ongoing transition from the Johannesburg Interbank Average Rate (JIBAR) to the South African Rand Overnight Index Average (ZARONIA), recognising both as legitimate floating reference rates and providing the methodology to convert between compounding periods. Standardised Loan-to-Value (LTV) and Interest Cover Ratio (ICR) calculations are introduced, giving lenders, analysts and rating agencies a single, consistent basis for assessing financial risk.
The Third Edition also formalises the recommendation that companies’ external auditors assure the accuracy, validity and completeness of the BPR disclosures. To the extent that the SA REIT BPR disclosures are considered pro-forma financial information in terms of the JSE listings requirements, the SA REIT BPR disclosures must be compiled in terms of the JSE listings requirements and the Guide on Pro-Forma Financial Information, issued by SAICA and an assurance report prepared by the company’s external auditors in terms of the ISAE 3420 may be required. Where the SA REIT BPR disclosures are sufficiently cross-referenced to the audited annual financial statements, a dispensation must be obtained from the JSE. The Third Edition is to be read alongside JSE Practice Note 4/2019.
Leon Kok, chair of the SA REIT Association Accounting and JSE Committee and author of the Third Edition foreword, says the update reflects six years of practical experience with the framework.
“The objective with the Third Edition was clarity and credibility. We have tightened the supplemental performance measures so that investors and financiers can read across the sector without ambiguity. We have formalised the role of external assurance over the disclosures that matter most. The result is a framework that holds up to the scrutiny that institutional capital, both local and offshore, now applies,” says Kok.
Reading South African REITs against the world
With the September 2025 launch of the Global REIT Alliance (GRA), originally established in 2006 as the Real Estate Equity Securitisation Alliance, South Africa is a member of a 24-country coalition that includes the National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts (Nareit) in the United States, the European Public Real Estate Association (EPRA) in Europe, the Real Property Association of Canada (REALPAC), the Property Council of Australia (PCA), the British Property Federation (BPF) and the Asia Pacific Real Assets Association (APREA). The SA REIT BPR takes its place in the Global REIT Alliance’s REIT Toolbox alongside EPRA’s Best Practice Recommendations, Nareit’s Funds from Operations White Paper, REALPAC’s Funds from Operations and Adjusted Funds from Operations guidance and the Property Council of Australia’s Funds from Operations frameworks.
Joanne Solomon, Chief Executive Officer of the SA REIT Association, says the Third Edition strengthens the case South African real estate investment trusts make to the international investor community.
“Comparability is the foundation on which capital is allocated. Global investors weighing South African real estate investment trusts against a roughly USD 2 trillion global market need to read the numbers in the same language they apply elsewhere. The Third Edition closes that gap and reflects how seriously the South African sector approaches its responsibilities to international capital,” she says.
A wider operational lens
The Third Edition introduces an entirely new section of standardised operating metrics that bring property-level economics into the same comparable framework. These include the renewal reversion rate (the percentage change between renewed and expired rentals per square metre), the renewal success rate by Gross Lettable Area (GLA), tenant retention rate calculated both by GLA and by Gross Monthly Rental (GMR), the Weighted Average Lease Escalation (WALE) and the Weighted Average Unexpired Lease Term (WAULT). Like-for-like revenue and net operating income growth, the rent-to-turnover ratio, trading density per Trading Density Area (TDA) for retail properties and the tenant effort ratio (full cost of occupancy over turnover) complete the new operational lens.
The intent is to give investors and analysts a standardised bridge between accounting performance and the underlying property fundamentals that drive it. For a sector in which top-line earnings can be shaped by lease escalations, retention dynamics, vacancy movements and like-for-like growth, the new metrics give the operational picture the same definitional discipline that has long applied to the financial statements.
Solomon adds that the timing of the update is significant.
“South African real estate investment trusts are coming off two of their strongest years in a decade. Distribution growth is approaching double digits on a rolling basis, balance sheets have been recapitalised and the investable universe continues to broaden through accretive corporate activity. The Third Edition gives the sector a disclosure foundation worthy of the trust the market has placed in it,” she explains.
To support adoption, the SA REIT Association will host a dedicated Best Practice Recommendations Question and Answer (Q&A) webinar in the coming weeks. The session will allow members, analysts, auditors, investors and other stakeholders to work through the practical application of the new edition with the team behind it. Details and registration will be communicated through the SA REIT Association website and member platforms.
Highlights from the SA REIT BPR Third Edition
- Effective for financial years commencing on or after 1 January 2026, replacing the Second Edition (November 2019) in full
- SA REIT Funds from Operations (FFO) per share formalised as the primary non-IFRS performance measure, with twenty-one specified reconciling adjustments
- SA REIT Net Asset Value (NAV) per share recast as a tangible measure, excluding goodwill, intangible assets and crystallising deferred tax
- Standardised cost-to-income ratios on both gross and net bases
- All-in weighted average cost of debt framework explicitly accommodating the Johannesburg Interbank Average Rate (JIBAR) to South African Rand Overnight Index Average (ZARONIA) reference-rate transition
- Standardised Loan-to-Value (LTV) and Interest Cover Ratio (ICR) calculations
- New operating-metrics section adding renewal reversion, renewal success, tenant retention by Gross Lettable Area (GLA) and Gross Monthly Rental (GMR), Weighted Average Lease Escalation (WALE), Weighted Average Unexpired Lease Term (WAULT), like-for-like revenue and net income growth, rent-to-turnover ratio, trading density per Trading Density Area (TDA) and the tenant effort ratio
- External assurance recommended, contemplated under International Standard on Assurance Engagements (ISAE) 3420 where the disclosures constitute pro forma financial information in terms of the JSE Listings Requirements
The SA REIT Best Practice Recommendations Third Edition is available for download at sareit.co.za.



























































