Broll Property Group, which was recently voted the Best Real Estate Services Company in Africa by Euromoney, continues to experience positive growth both in South Africa and across the African continent.
According to Group CEO, Malcolm Horne, this growth results from significant and focused investments over the last 10 years, in a world-class property services platform across Sub-Saharan Africa.
“Overall growth over the last 12 months has resulted in the group increasing gross lettable area (GLA) under its management to 20 million square metres.”
The underlying value of third party assets under management now exceed R125 billion, he says.
He says this growth has spawned the creation of numerous job opportunities, resulting in the group virtually increasing its workforce to 1 329 people within the last 24-month cycle.
According to Horne, Broll’s Corporate Real Estate Services (CRES) division has been at the forefront of this tremendous growth.
Recent CRES successes include securing a financial services client contract, comprising of 420 sites across Sub-Saharan Africa, as well as procuring a leading global oil company contract, consisting of 400 properties in South Africa valued in excess of R3 billion.
CRES alone now manages 2 240 000 square metres of GLA, valued at R28 billion.
Broll Facilities Management (FM) division, in close pursuit of CRES, now has R25 billion of assets under its control. The increased demand for this value-added service through controlled expenditure and improved service delivery has resulted in FM recently being awarded the prestigious parliamentary portfolio in Cape Town and the MTN portfolio.
Furthermore, Broll’s core property management division’s assets under management currently exceed R48 billion. The fact that Broll manages 291 shopping centres across Sub-Saharan Africa, including the 7 largest shopping malls outside South Africa, is testimony to its involvement in this field.
Horne says there are approximately 53 new retail projects in Africa under construction currently - 28 percent of these are in East Africa, 44 percent in the SADC region and 28 percent in West Africa.
Although challenging, the hard work put into expanding the Africa business has resulted in Broll securing the mandate for leasing of over 1 million square metres of retail projects (in various stages of completion) in these regions over the next 24 months.
He says as group CEO in 2010, he ascribes the success and phenomenal growth of the Broll Property Group to a number of factors, most notably, the entrepreneurial vision of its shareholders and the great team of passionate people who have the ability to seize opportunities as they arise.
“I am thankful to all of those clients who support the Broll business.”
The group’s business is not about individuals or personal achievements, but about individuals working together as a team in order to achieve their full potential while recognising and respecting other team members, says Horne.