Exemplar REITail takes up spot on JSE

From local is lekker to hyper-localisation: Township consumer trends to watch this festive season

Mongezi Mtati

Exemplar REITail, an offshoot of McCormick Property Development (MPD), has listed on the JSE. The company will focus entirely on the ownership and management of township and rural retail.

Exemplar board of directors: (L-R) Greg Azzopardi, Peter Katzenellenbogen, Jason McCormick, John McCormick, Duncan Church, and Frank Berkeley. (Absent: Phatudi Maponya)

CEO of Exemplar REITail Jason McCormick says it will continue to work alongside MPD and will have first right of refusal for all its developments going forward, subject to approval from the investment committee.

The MPD development pipeline currently stands at over half a million square metres of retail potential (at 2017 market demand estimates), with an average size of over 20,000m² per development.

Exemplar has listed with a value of just over R5.5bn and a market capitalisation of just over R3bn. The fund has 20 retail properties and three further shopping centres, currently under construction, that will be added to the portfolio once completed within the next two years.

“We are the only fund in South Africa focused purely on emerging market retail and are unique in that every one of the 20 operational properties in the fund were developed by MPD. The same team that has managed them since their respective openings will still continue to do so,” says McCormick.