Barnus van der Walt, the managing director of Sanlam Property Asset Management, also confirmed yesterday that the aim was to list a much bigger diversified property fund, with a portfolio valued at R2.5 billion, towards the end of this year.

Van der Walt said everything was in place, with the exception of a few regulatory issues, for the listing of MICC Fund, which has a portfolio valued at R900 million.

He said the prospectus for the listing would be issued in the next two weeks and it was "something very special and different".

Van der Walt said the fund took advantage of an opportunity existing in the market and some of properties had been in funds that were to be listed in the past.

However, Van der Walt would not comment on market speculation that many of the properties in MICC Fund were in the portfolio of Cupar, whose proposed listing last year was cancelled due to unfavourable market conditions.

His comments follow the announcement earlier this week that Gensec Property Services managing director Gerhard van Zyl had accepted a position as chief executive of a property fund that was soon to be listed by Sanlam.

Van der Walt said the larger fund to be listed was not a Sanlam fund.

Sanlam was the promoter of the fund and had been working "flat out" to find vendors other than Sanlam for its portfolio.

He said the fund would not have any standing in the market place if it contained only Sanlam properties and the more vendors it had, the better its reputation and image.

In addition, Sanlam was not permitted to have more than 35 percent of the units, he said.