Accelerate Property Fund to further enhance Fourways Mall shopping experience

Accelerate Property Fund, with retail specialists Flanagan & Gerhard and the Moolman Group, are working on initiatives to elevate the shopping experience at flagship shopping centre, Fourways Mall.

Fourways Mall is a super-regional shopping destination in the high traffic Fourways node, in Gauteng. It carries a value of R4.03 billion in Accelerate’s balance sheet, and it makes up by far the biggest component of its R5.59bn retail property portfolio, which comprises 8 other shopping centres. The retail component makes up 66.7% of the group’s revenue.

Accelerate said in its annual report Friday the Fourways Mall continued to demonstrate strong performance in the year to March 31, with a year-on-year trading density increase of 6.1%. The enhancements underway include optimising tenant spaces, refining the tenant mix, and implementing sustainability initiatives, such as solar energy solutions.

Accelerate plans to spend R160.7 million on the mall over the next 12 months. Focus areas are improved wayfinding, enhancing the family focus, solar projects, adapting to changing consumer behaviour, exploring alternative uses for space, expanding the restaurant offering and a continued focus on catering for the entire LSM spectrum.

The centre secured over 20 000 square metres of new retail leases and renewed more than 150 tenant agreements during the past financial year. New brands to the mall included Huawei, Levisons and ZuluZenith, and key financial services were relocated for improved accessibility.

“The return of a family-favourite Spur and relaunch of the refurbished airplane attraction underscored the mall’s commitment to local relevance and experiential retail, the group's directors said. Additional new attractions included Bloc 11 (rock climbing), Urban Playground, Total Ninja and Planet Fitness,” they said.

Vacancies at Accelerate’s retail centres fell to 12% from 13.8%, while the vacancies at its commercial properties increased to 31.6% from 30.8%. The vacancies appear quite high, as an online search by BR showed that in the first half of 2025, the average SAPOA retail vacancy rate was at around 4%.

The group reported a net loss of R1.3bn for the 2025 year, mainly due to the revaluation of investment property to its fair values and expected credit losses consisting primarily of the impairment of related party balances due to the probability of recovery being considered remote.

In the last financial year, the group reported a large impairment of over R970m arising from a settlement agreement between the group and co-developer of Fourways Mall, Azarapart, that had lapsed due to suspensive conditions not being met, and Azarapart had gone into business rescue.

In July, the group successfully raised R100m of additional capital by way of a rights offer. Further asset disposals were planned to further reduce loan-to-value (LTV) to below 40% - the SA REIT LTV reduced to 48.3% at the end of the last financial year from 50.3% the year before.

As part of the disposal strategy, post the financial year end, Erf 7 Roggebaai and 1 Charles Crescent were disposed of, and more assets had been identified as held for sale with significant progress being made on the assets earmarked for disposal.

Accelerate's CEO Abri Schneider said in the report they had entered the 2026 financial year with "measured optimism."

“The full financial impact of disposals and cost optimisation will be reflected in FY2026 and FY2027, with earnings stability expected to resume once the effects of our repositioning strategy are fully crystalised,” he said.

Key focus areas included the remaining disposals and reducing debt, deepening operational traction at Fourways Mall and core retail assets, improving debt metrics, strengthening rental income through strategic leasing and tenant curation, and enhancing governance architecture and stakeholder transparency, he said.

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