Century Property Developers have taken over the BelAir and Lonehill malls north of Johannesburg after a deal was struck between liquidators, the buyer and Absa Bank.
Auction Alliance CEO Rael Levitt says the sale closed the chapter on the country's highest-value liquidation auction yet. Absa's head of lending of commercial property finance, Michael Mortimer, says the malls were sold with certain terms and conditions in place. Mortimer declined to disclose the value of the transaction. Levitt says while there had been strong interest from local listed and non-listed property funds, the Century Property Developers deal was the most suitable to Absa.
The malls were previously owned by the Theodosiou brothers as part of various entities owned by them. It went into liquidation following a R1bn debt they incurred developing and renovating the centres and other developments around the country. The malls continued trading while the liquidation was in progress.
The centres were previously valued at R700m.
In October 2008, Absa Bank brought an application to liquidate Immobili Retail Investment (Pty) Ltd which owned the 20 000 square metre Lonehill Shopping Centre. It also applied to liquidate BelAir Mall (Pty) Ltd which owned a 20 000 square meeting on Malibongwe Drive in North Riding.
The bank, which was owed R900m and accruing interest at R11m per month, brought the liquidation application in the North Gauteng High Court. A two-year legal spat between the bank and the developers ensued after the provisional liquidation order was granted. The planned auction was billed as the largest sale in South African property history.
In April 2007, the City of Johannesburg was granted two court orders against the Theodosiou brothers to stop the extension of the Lonehill centre without council permission. The brothers chose to ignore the order, prompting Judge Ivor Schwartzmann to hand them a three-month suspended sentence. They were also told to pay R20 000 in fines. The brothers, Tony, Dimitri and Sedrick traded under the name of Universal Property Professionals and were involved in retail and commercial property development for more than three decades.
