SYN prop e tech S.A.

What it is

SYN is the result of a 2007 spin-off of the commercial real estate activities of Cyrela Brazil Realty S.A., which transferred to the new company its assets in office buildings and shopping centres, as well as their management. Today it holds roughly 190,000 square metres of leasable space, split between ten Triple-A and Class-A corporate towers and six shopping-centre stakes.

The company’s long experience in occupancy management has helped it consistently achieve vacancy rates lower than the market average. All assets sit in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, concentrated on the premium Faria Lima and Paulista corridors.

Who owns it

Elie Horn and Leo Krakowiak are the controlling shareholders, together holding 61% of the shares. Horn is the largest single holder at roughly 24%, while Krakowiak holds about 22%, and Danubio do Brasil Adm e Participações holds a further 9.2%.

Institutional investors — mainly funds — hold a further 12.3%, leaving a free float of roughly 27%. The general public accounts for about 16% of shares.

With insiders controlling nearly two-thirds of the stock, minority holders have limited sway over major decisions.

Who runs it

Thiago Muramatsu has served as CEO since February 2021, having joined the company as a trainee 13 years earlier. The CFO and Investor Relations Director is Hector Bruno Franco de Carvalho Leitão, an economist trained at USP who took the role in January 2022 after several years managing the company’s shopping-centre portfolio.

Elie Horn has chaired the Board since the company’s founding in 2007. Leo Krakowiak serves as Vice-Chairman of the Board.

The board has five members, three of whom are independent, with the most recent election held in April 2025.

The money, in plain words

SYN keeps about 20 cents of profit from every real of rental income — a net profit margin of 20.0%, healthy for a landlord. However, for every real that shareholders own in the business, it earned less than 5 cents last year — a return on equity of 4.7% — depressed by a balance sheet still heavy with assets being sold off.

The company carries net debt of R$297.2M (US$57.7M) — the difference between its R$167.9M (US$32.6M) cash pile and R$465.0M (US$90.2M) in total borrowings (our calculation). The shares trade at 9.7 times earnings, a price-to-earnings ratio that looks cheap; the dividend yield in the structured data stands at 66.7%, a number distorted by a large one-off capital return paid to shareholders in late 2024 after the big asset sale described below.

What it is doing now

Since 2021 SYN has been selling assets recurrently; in 2024 it sold a significant portion of its shopping-centre portfolio to a real-estate investment fund for R$1.85 billion (US$359 mn), covering 104,000 square metres of leasable area. That transaction inflated 2024 revenues to R$1.36B (US$263M) and triggered the capital reduction described below.

In December 2024 the company returned R$560 million (US$109 mn) — R$3.67 (US$0.71)per share — to shareholders through a capital reduction, having judged that amount to be surplus to its needs. The portfolio that remains is leaner: prime offices and a smaller set of malls, generating R$327.6M (US$63.6M) in trailing revenue.

What to watch

• Portfolio direction: management must decide whether to keep selling assets to unlock further value or to stabilise and rebuild recurring rental income — the two paths imply very different valuations.
• Return on equity: at 4.7%, ROE is thin; as the sold-asset proceeds are fully returned to shareholders and the balance sheet shrinks, this ratio should improve — or reveal whether the remaining portfolio earns its keep.
• Dividend normalisation: the quoted 66.7% yield reflects an exceptional year; investors need to form a view on the sustainable ordinary payout once the asset-sale cycle ends.
• Concentration risk: with two individuals controlling 61% of shares and every asset in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, the company has low governance diversification and is fully exposed to those two cities’ office and retail cycles.

This is news, not investment advice.