{"id":854637,"date":"2026-03-23T12:30:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-23T10:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=854637"},"modified":"2026-03-23T12:13:03","modified_gmt":"2026-03-23T10:13:03","slug":"major-mall-in-one-of-south-africas-largest-townships-sold-for-r443-million","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/property\/854637\/major-mall-in-one-of-south-africas-largest-townships-sold-for-r443-million\/","title":{"rendered":"Major mall in one of South Africa’s largest townships sold for R443 million"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Vukile Property Fund has reached an agreement to acquire 100% of Botshabelo Mall, in the Free State\u2019s largest township, for R443 million. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a pre-close presentation to investors, Vukile said that it made several changes to its South African portfolio, <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This included selling four non-core assets for R625 million, acquiring 50% of Chatsworth Mall in KwaZulu-Natal for R620 million, and acquiring Botshabelo Mall. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group’s pre-close presentation showed that Botshabelo Mall is expected to be transferred by June 2026, with a net operating income yield (NOI yield) of 8.5% and a Cash-on-cash (CoC) yield of 8.5%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Construction of the mall began in 2015 and cost R320 million. STANLIB, the asset manager of the Liberty Property Portfolio, and Khora Investments developed the mall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 21,000 sqm mall opened its doors in 2016 and was aimed at serving the local community, whose nearest shopping mall was 50km away in Bloemfontein. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Liberty’s interest in the mall aligned with its strategic intent to have property located in growing townships, which continues to be a trend in the retail space. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Botshabelo is part of the Mangaung Local Municipality and is the single largest township in the Free State. It has a population of just under 200,000 people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prior to the mall’s opening, the vast majority of people from the area were forced to shop in Bloemfontein and Thaba ‘Nchu, where the nearest malls were situated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The mall is located at the corner of Main Road and N8 National Highway. Main Road is a key route in and out of the township, while the N8 is the main transport route between Maseru, Lesotho, and Bloemfontein.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2019, Liberty, via Liberty Two Degrees, acquired the remaining 30% stake in the mall that it did not already own. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vukile is one of South Africa’s top real estate investment trusts (REITs), with interests in South Africa, Spain and Portugal. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group’s South African operations are projected to show like-for-like NOI growth of 10.1%, driven by sustained high occupancy, additional PV, and operational cost savings, such as borehole water savings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group’s Township and Rural centres continued to outperform, with year-on-year growth in sales (+5.2% and +5.3%) and footfall (+0.7% and +0.7%).<\/p>\n\n\n

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Vukile’s South African portfolio<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n
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Botshabelo Mall Photos<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n
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Source: Facebook<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n
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Source: Facebook<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n
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Source: Facebook<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n
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Source: Facebook<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n
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Source: Facebook<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n
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Vukile Property Fund is acquiring Botshabelo Mall, with the deal set to go through in June. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":845572,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12755],"tags":[20473],"class_list":["post-854637","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-property","tag-vukile"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/854637","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\/95"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=854637"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/854637\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":854657,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/854637\/revisions\/854657"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/845572"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=854637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=854637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=854637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}