Owner of South Africa’s biggest shopping mall sells KPMG head office for R385 million

Accelerate Property Fund has sold KPMG Crescent and its parkade in Johannesburg to Rand Mutual Assurance for R385 million. 

This was revealed by the property fund in an announcement on the JSE’s news service on 25 September. 

KPMG Crescent and the parkade are located at 85 Empire Road and were owned by Wanooka Properties. The property is the financial services firm’s head office in South Africa. 

As part of Accelerate’s ongoing strategic repositioning and restructuring programme, the company decided to sell KPMG Crescent. 

This repositioning and restructuring programme is largely a consequence of Accelerate needing to manage its debt burden arising from the construction of South Africa’s largest shopping mall, Fourways Mall. 

Accelerate has disposed of properties across the country as it seeks to streamline its operations and improve efficiency. 

On 15 September, it revealed the sale of the Cedar Square shopping centre in Fourways for R630 million. 

In its 2026 financial year, Accelerate disposed of Erf 7 Roggebaai, 1 Charles Crescent, Pri-movie Park, 73 Hertzog Boulevard, and Portside for aggregate proceeds of R788.5 million.

These proceeds were mostly applied to reduce the REIT’s interest-bearing borrowings.

At the end of its 2026 financial year, Accelerate’s portfolio comprised 15 properties valued at R6.6 billion.

Since then, Accelerate has also transferred The Buzz Shopping Centre, Waterford, The Buzz vacant land, Valleyview, and Edgars Polokwane for R278.2 million.

This is all to free up capital for Fourways Mall and address some liquidity and debt concerns. 

KPMG Crescent is the latest, having been sold along with its parkade to Rand Mutual Assurance for R350 million. 

Rand Mutual Assurance is a non-profit organisation that administers workers’ compensation and occupational health benefits. 

It was founded in 1893 by mining companies on the Witwatersrand to care for injured miners. It has expanded beyond mining into other high-risk blue-collar industries. 

KPMG Crescent is a valuable asset, with Accelerate reporting that the property’s net operating income for the past financial year was R100.8 million. 

The income is thanks to KPMG’s long-term lease, which has escalated at 8% per annum over the past 12-year period. As of 1 September, the firm was paying Accelrate R99.52 per m².