{"id":817015,"date":"2025-03-14T16:30:00","date_gmt":"2025-03-14T14:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=817015"},"modified":"2025-03-14T16:10:51","modified_gmt":"2025-03-14T14:10:51","slug":"fourways-mall-owner-selling-big-sandton-properties","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/property\/817015\/fourways-mall-owner-selling-big-sandton-properties\/","title":{"rendered":"Fourways Mall owner selling big Sandton properties"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Listed South African REIT and owner of Fourways Mall, Accelerate Property Fund, has been recommended by the Competition Commission to sell two key properties in Sandton.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The commission has recommended that the Competition Tribunal approve the sale of 1 and 5 Charles Crescent in Sandton to property groups Prestige and Emidomax.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prestige and Emidomax are beneficially owned by Africrest Properties (Pty) Limited and Old Mutual Limited.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the Competition Commission, the acquiring groups are property investment holding companies that own, develop, redevelop, and manage office, retail, industrial, and residential properties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The commission is of the view that the proposed transaction is unlikely to substantially lessen or prevent competition in any market and does not raise significant public interest concerns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Africrest has made some bold redevelopment moves over the past few years, most notably high-level conversions of office space into residential property.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2022, the group completed a major conversion, turning the 30,000-square-metre ex-PwC building in Sunninghill into 700 apartments for middle-income earners<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the latest deal, the group is set to acquire 1 and 5 Charles Crescent once all approvals are met.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1 Charles Crescent is a 13,700-square-metre office park valued at R50.6 million, while 5 Charles Crescent is the 17,180-square-metre GLA “PriMovie Park” that forms part of Ster-Kinekor’s home base in Sandton, valued at R64 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The locations form part of the Accelerate-owned “Charles Crescent” node, which includes five properties. Once the latest sales are finalised, the node will be fully disposed of.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Accelerate previously raised R43 million from selling 9 and 10 Charles Crescent, and Brooklyn Place, which comprise 4,300 sqm GLA, 3,400 sqm GLA, and 2,860 sqm GLA, respectively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was part of a wider disposal of properties in its portfolio, which raised R563 million (net of commission), which was used to reduce its debts and improve the fund\u2019s future interest cover ratio.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Future proceeds from sales are expected to be used for the same purpose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
Google Street view of 1 Charles Crescent, Sandton<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Pinning success on Fourways Mall<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Accelerate has pinned a lot of its turnaround hopes on the biggest asset in its portfolio, Fourways Mall, in which it is investing heavily.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fourways Mall is the biggest shopping mall in South Africa, with a gross lettable area of 178,000 square meters and 350 stores.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fund owns 50% of the mall, which carries a total fair value of around R7.9 billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The mall has struggled over the past few years due to high vacancy levels and lower net rents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group noted in its 2024 FY results that it was spending R400 million<\/strong><\/a> to upgrade Fourways Mall in a bid to improve its fundamentals, improve its cash flow and reduce vacancies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fund appointed new management and a turnaround team at the mall in 2024 to drive further upgrades and strategies to restore its positioning in the area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the interim period that ended September 2024, the fund noted a meaningful improvement at Fourways Mall, with the vacancy rate reducing from 19.2% in March 2024 to 17.9% by September.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Competition Commission has approved a proposed transaction that will see Fourways Mall owner Accelerate sell two key properties in Sandton.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":817022,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12755],"tags":[19940,16558],"class_list":["post-817015","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-property","tag-accelerate-property-fund","tag-africrest"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817015","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=817015"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817015\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":817023,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817015\/revisions\/817023"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/817022"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=817015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=817015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=817015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}