{"id":876582,"date":"2026-09-22T10:22:53","date_gmt":"2026-09-22T08:22:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=876582"},"modified":"2026-09-22T10:36:37","modified_gmt":"2026-09-22T08:36:37","slug":"end-of-era-for-the-south-african-property-giant-that-built-a-beach-in-joburg-and-pretoria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/property\/876582\/end-of-era-for-the-south-african-property-giant-that-built-a-beach-in-joburg-and-pretoria\/","title":{"rendered":"End of era for South African property giant that built a ‘beach’ in Joburg and Pretoria"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Thirty years after being founded, and 11 years after being publicly listed, Balwin Properties is going private and delisting from the JSE.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The property group, valued at R2.26 billion, will be delisting after almost 11 years on the JSE and three and a half years on A2X.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group was founded in 1996 by Steve Brookes, growing from a small developer of 50 sectional-title units in Johannesburg South into South Africa’s leading large-scale residential estate developer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) in 2015 in the Real Estate Investment and Services sector, and added a secondary listing on the A2X exchange in 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of its crowning developments was the R10 billion Munyaka development in Waterfall City, which brought \u201cbeachside living\u201d to Johannesburg in 2023<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Through an exclusive agreement with Crystal Lagoons, the developer built a 3-hectare water feature in the inland city, the second of its kind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Balwin\u2019s first clearwater lagoon was built at The Blyde in Tshwane East in 2018<\/strong><\/a>, which became the first development in South Africa to incorporate a clearwater lagoon built in a beach setting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group will now be entering private ownership, with its founder management team, alongside the Public Investment Corporation, acting on behalf of the Government Employees Pension Fund.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The delisting follows the implementation of the R2.26 billion take-private transaction, which received overwhelming shareholder support, with 98.48% of eligible votes cast in favour of the scheme. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The transaction provides eligible shareholders with R4.35 per share in cash, paid on 21 September 2026, while Balwin\u2019s founding investors remain invested alongside the PIC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Founder and CEO Steve Brookes said the change in ownership does not signal a change in either Balwin\u2019s leadership or the principles on which the business has been built.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI founded Balwin 30 years ago and remain as committed to the business today as I was then,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Balwin said its years as a listed company played an important role in its development from a founder-led residential developer into a large institutional business. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

During that period, the company strengthened its governance, financial discipline, reporting standards, internal controls, risk management, Board oversight and accountability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Those disciplines will remain embedded in the business under private ownership,” it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During its listed years, Balwin delivered approximately 26,000 apartments to homeowners, generated R28.3 billion in revenue from apartment sales and returned almost R1 billion to shareholders through dividend distributions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The company also completed its 100th residential development in 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Looking ahead, the group said that existing management will remain operationally involved, while the new ownership structure provides Balwin with capital resources.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Balwin will continue with the development model that has underpinned its growth, complemented by its annuity business and an emerging build-to-rent platform that remains in its early stages of development,” it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have 30 years behind us, an experienced management team, strong long-term shareholders and significant opportunities still ahead.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Images of Balwin’s Munyaka beach development in Joburg<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thirty years after being founded, and 11 years after being publicly listed, Balwin Properties is going private and delisting from the JSE.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":876584,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"posted","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"2102312956729974793","_sma_facebook_post_id":"191437357620492_2212864909533908","_sma_instagram_post_id":"17872908216637948","_sma_x_attempts":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12755],"tags":[11833,175],"class_list":["post-876582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-property","tag-balwin-properties","tag-jse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/876582","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=876582"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/876582\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":876597,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/876582\/revisions\/876597"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/876584"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=876582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=876582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=876582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}