The retailer posted the highest additional turnover rental ratio in Tigere's FY2025 portfolio a performance that mirrors strong margin expansion at Delta Corporation and AFDIS and points to entrenched consumer spending in the premium liquor segment. 

HARARE - When Tigere Real Estate Investment Trust presented its full-year 2025 results, the headline numbers commanded attention and these included, rental revenue surging 59% to US$2.64 million, net property income climbing 61%, and distributable income per unit rising 23.2%. 

However, a slide from the results presentation showed a chart with data exposing that Liquor Supplies, "obliterated" in Trump's words, rental turnover thresholds, posting an additional turnover rental ratio of 22.89%, the highest among all tenants in the portfolio.

The performance is significant for several reasons. Tigere operates a hybrid rental model, a structure increasingly common in quality retail assets, under which tenants pay a fixed base rent as a floor and an incremental "turnover rent" when sales exceed a contractually agreed threshold.

 This additional component serves as a powerful signal of underlying tenant health. It only triggers when business is genuinely booming. 

That Liquor Supplies generated nearly a quarter of its base rent in additional turnover income speaks directly to the quality and consistency of its sales volumes across the reporting period.

"The turnover rental model does not lie, it rewards tenants who convert footfall into sales. Liquor Supplies' 22.89% ratio is not an accident, it reflects a structural consumer preference for trusted, premium product sourcing." 

Understanding what drives Liquor Supplies' outperformance requires appreciating a peculiarity of Zimbabwe's retail liquor market. The country's beverages segment is rife with counterfeit and substandard products, a reality that has conditioned discerning consumers to pay a meaningful price premium for verifiable authenticity. Liquor Supplies has carved out a defensible position in this context, pricing above market averages but delivering on a promise that resonates strongly with its customer base. Every bottle on its shelves arrived through legitimate, duty-paid supply chains.

This positioning has proved resilient to price sensitivity. While general retail faces persistent pressure as consumers allocate spending carefully in a constrained macro environment, the premium liquor segment has demonstrated an inelastic demand curve among its core clientele. 

The customer seeking authentic Scotch whisky or imported wine is, almost by definition, less susceptible to trading down than the customer buying a commodity staple and that dynamic has been lucrative for Liquor Supplies and, by extension, its landlord.

Tigere's Turnover Rental Model

Tigere's leases combine a fixed base rent with a variable component that activates when tenant revenues exceed a pre-agreed threshold. The "additional turnover rental" percentage shown in the chart represents income above and beyond base rent, a direct reflection of how strongly each tenant's sales are outperforming their contractual floor.

The narrative aligns neatly with trends at two of Zimbabwe's most prominent publicly listed spirits and beverages producers. Delta Corporation, the country's dominant beverages group, has reported sustained volume growth and margin improvement in its lager and spirits divisions, underpinned by firming premiumisation trends and improved foreign currency availability filtering into consumer wallets from remittances and informal trade.

 African Distillers (AFDIS), the local manufacturer of a range of wines and spirits, has similarly pointed to robust offtake and healthier distributor margins as consumers gravitate toward branded, traceable product. Liquor Supplies' turnover rental outperformance at the retail end of this chain is therefore not an isolated anomaly but a downstream confirmation of a theme that is playing out across the entire spirits value chain.

The implications for Tigere as a REIT are also worth noting. Turnover rents provide a natural inflation hedge and a revenue uplift mechanism that fixed leases simply cannot replicate. As Liquor Supplies and to a lesser extent Star Liquor, which posted a 12.30% additional turnover ratio, demonstrate strong conversion rates, Tigere benefits directly through enhanced distributable income, improving its capacity to sustain and grow its dividend. The fund declared a quarterly dividend of US$847,250 for Q4 2025, representing 0.04602 US cents per unit, consistent with its policy of predictable distributions.

Star Liquor's own 12.30% performance, ranking third behind Smokehouse, reinforces the liquor segment's dominance within the turnover rental leaderboard.

 Together, the two liquor-focused tenants occupy two of the top three positions which is a concentration that underlines how the segment's unit economics are translating into exceptional in-store revenue densities.

The broader portfolio context is also supportive. Tigere's weighted average occupancy ended the year at 97%, reflecting the successful repositioning of three tenants in Q4 and the full integration of newly acquired assets including Greenfields Retail Centre and Zimre Park Drive Thru, which entered the portfolio at 100% occupancy.

 At Greenfields in particular, food, beverage, and entertainment tenants breached monthly sales expectations in November and December, suggesting that the centre's catchment and tenant mix are well-calibrated to current consumer behaviour.

For investors tracking Zimbabwe's consumer and property landscape, Liquor Supplies' performance at Tigere is a data point worth filing carefully. It corroborates the thesis that branded, premium-positioned retail especially in categories where authenticity commands a scarcity premium, is generating some of the most durable returns in the current cycle. 

The convergence between Tigere's rental data, Delta's volume trends, and AFDIS's margin story is not coincidental. It reflects a real, measurable consumer preference that, for now at least, shows no signs of going flat.