Mall giant shrinks to size

Dream Collapses: Fourways co-owner allows prime shopping centres to deteriorate

- Moneyweb

Accelerate Property Fund's fantastical Fourways super-node dream – at one point it shared a render of skyscrapers mushrooming around the mall – is in ruins. As the turnaround of Fourways Mall, of which it owns 50%, labours on, the JSE-listed fund is being forced to continuously sell down its other assets to pay down a mountain of debt.

Following the disposal of The Buzz shopping centre and the adjacent Waterford centre, it will be left with just three properties in the node: Fourways Mall, Cedar Square and BMW Fourways.

In the not-too-distant future, that number may decline to just a single one.

The dramatic redevelopment of Leaping Frog shopping centre in Fourways following its sale by Accelerate in April 2022 shows just how poorly Accelerate has managed most of its assets over time.

These neighbourhood convenience centres have seen chronic underinvestment and the lack of a coherent letting strategy since the fund listed over a decade ago.

By luck or design (likely the former), it actually listed on the JSE with, and then acquired, some pretty good assets. Extremely limited capital expenditure has seen many of its retail assets fade and become increasingly irrelevant in the markets they serve.