Announcing its financial results for the half -year to April, the group said it planned to build on its growing collection of 62 commercial properties, now valued at R984m.

Paraprop MD Rodney SquireHowe said: "We expect to introduce several additional properties to the fund before year-end".

Paraprop bought properties worth R67,2m during the half year to April. Since then it has reached agreement to acquire further properties to the value of R58m.

The latest deals are expected to push it over the R1bn mark.

Squire-Howe said the newly acquired properties would not dilute the quality of the group's portfolio.

Paraprop increased its distribution a unit 1c to 25c. That the group had doubled its total distribution from R8,2m to R16,5m, was masked by the number of units increasing from 34-million to 63-million. Paraprop described the interim results as "solid".

It said it was committed to reducing debt as a percentage of total capital employed. The ratio had already dropped, from 64% to 58%. Paraprop was now planning reduce this to 55% by year-end and to 50% by the end of next year.

Squire-Howe said the group was restructuring its board. The board now numbered 11 , following the resignation of four board members.

He said the board was originally made up of representatives of vendors who sold properties into the fund. As the group's shareholding structure had changed, and the group found the 15-member board "unwieldy" , "fully independent" directors were brought in.

The group expected steady earnings for the year. Even so, it said there was strong demand for its "34 on St George's" residential project in Cape Town.

The project was almost 70% sold after three weeks of promotion.

More than 25000m² of vacant space was let in the past six months, and the fund's average vacancy ratio was currently 3,9%, which the company said was far lower than the sector average.

Paraprop closed unchanged at R3,45 with 85171 shares traded in 9 deals on the JSE Securities Exchange SA on Friday.