{"id":800952,"date":"2024-11-22T11:50:00","date_gmt":"2024-11-22T09:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=800952"},"modified":"2024-11-22T11:48:46","modified_gmt":"2024-11-22T09:48:46","slug":"south-africas-biggest-shopping-mall-hits-another-speed-bump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/800952\/south-africas-biggest-shopping-mall-hits-another-speed-bump\/","title":{"rendered":"South Africa’s biggest shopping mall hits a speed bump"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Owners of South Africa’s largest shopping mall, Fourways Mall, Accelerate Property Fund, has announced that a deal to potentially dispose of a 15% stake in the centre has fallen through.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In August, Accelerate announced that it would be exploring an agreement with mall’s new managers\u2014Flanagan & Gerard and Luvon Investments (the Moolman Group)\u2014including a possible option to dispose of a 15% stake in the asset<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group concluded the development and asset management services agreement with F&G and Moolman in August<\/strong><\/a>, but flagged\u00a0the potential disposal of a minority interest in the mall\u00a0as part of the agreement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, in a notice shareholders on Friday (22 November), the group said that the terms of the potential deal had fallen through.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Shareholders are hereby advised that the suspensive conditions in the agreement were not fulfilled on time and as a result the agreement is of no force and effect<\/strong>,” Accelerate said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite the agreement falling through, Accelerate said that F&G and Luvon are on site at the mall and continue to render the requisite services in respect of Fourways Mall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Further to this, the group said it is engaging with the various parties to the agreement in order to conclude a new agreement on the same or substantially the same terms as the previous agreement, which would include an extension of the time period for the fulfilment of the suspensive conditions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Shareholders will be notified of further developments in this regard in due course,” it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the meantime, the group has withdrawn a cautionary announcement attached to the deal and advised that share trading can continue as normal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Turnaround plan<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

F&G and Luvon (Moolman Group) are spearheading a R400 million management and feature overhaul at Fourways Mall in a bid to turn the regional centre’s fortunes around.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fourways Mall is by far the biggest asset in the Accelerate portfolio, with the group\u2019s 50% share valued at R3.9 billion (and the whole mall itself worth R7.8 billion). It is also the biggest shopping mall in South Africa with a GLA of 178,202 square meters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite this, the mall has been suffering from a high number of empty shops, with the vacancy rate increasing from 3% in 2021 to 20% three years later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The net rent per square meter declined from R278 in 2019 to R223 in 2024, and rental income declined from R330 million to R295 million over the last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In terms of the management agreement\u2014laid out in August\u2014the groups will be providing management services for a five-year period, unless all parties agree to terminate the contract early (including lenders), the group defaults, or the co-owners dispose of their entire share of the mall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Read: South Africa\u2019s biggest vs busiest shopping mall \u2013 and the one trouble they have in common<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A potential deal between Fourways Mall’s owners and its new managers has missed its deadline – but a new one is in the works.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":783991,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-800952","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/800952","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=800952"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/800952\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":801150,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/800952\/revisions\/801150"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/783991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=800952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=800952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=800952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}