New owners for four of town's shopping centres

Date: 25 May 2017 By: Anton van Zyl

Four of Louis Trichardt’s business centres may soon have new owners. Gemgrow Properties Ltd announced on Wednesday (17^th) that it is in the process of purchasing several of the properties developed by well-known businessman Mr Solly Noor.

Gemgrow Properties is a JSE-listed company, specialising in managing property portfolios. It was previously known as Synergy. Its existing property portfolio is valued at around R4,4 billion.

The four properties in Louis Trichardt that are part of the transaction are the Anverally Hadjee Noor Centre (Checkers Centre) in Songozwi Street, the Shoprite Centre in Kruger Street, the Hawama Noor Centre (where ABSA Bank is the main tenant) in Songozwi Street and the Noor Centre in Songozwi Street with Choppies as main tenant. The properties are valued at R330 million. The transaction is still subject to the fulfilment of certain conditions.

“These retail assets are placed in areas with high footfall and a strong consumer presence. These properties will deliver sustainable and measurable income growth with long leases in place with national retail tenants,” said the COO of Gremgrow, Alon Kirkel, in a press release.

In an interview on Thursday, Mr Noor said that these properties held a lot of sentimental value for the family and it was not an easy decision to sell them. The Noor Centre on the corner of Songozwi and Krogh Street was one of the first of its kind in the town. It also marked the start of a re-investment in the town’s CBD after the Indian community were forcibly removed from the area by the previous government.

In the past couple of decades, Solly Noor’s name has become synonymous with a large number of property developments, not only in Limpopo, but also the rest of the country. In Louis Trichardt, his companies still own the Tasneem Noor Centre, the old municipal building and the centre where Nedbank is the main tenant. The Solly's Discount World store and buildings also belong to the Noor Group. His companies further also own property and land in Musina.

“We have been traders for decades,” said Mr Noor and explained that, as such, one should not become too attached to assets. “This also does not mean that we are pulling our investments from the region,” he said. According to him, the Noor group is in the process of developing two more centres in town. “At this stage it is a bit early to make an announcement, but in the one development construction work should start in the next few months,” he said.

In the past couple of years the Noor Group has completed a number of very ambitious developments. The latest was a 54 000 m² distribution centre for the Checkers store in Cape Town.

The Noor family currently resides in Cape Town.

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Anton van Zyl

Anton van Zyl has been with the Zoutpansberger and Limpopo Mirror since 1990. He graduated from the Rand Afrikaans University (now University of Johannesburg) and obtained a BA Communications degree. He is a founder member of the Association of Independent Publishers.

More photos... 

The Noor Centre in Songozwi Street, with Choppies as main tenant.

The Hawama Noor Centre (where ABSA Bank is the main tenant) in Songozwi Street.