Real Estate Investor Magazine South Africa February/March 2019 | Page 10

Rhys Rocke
MASTER INVESTOR
Dedicated to building a
legacy in the property
development game
BY NEALE PETERSEN
R
hys Rocke is the Managing Director of prominent
South African property developer FWJK, in Johannes-
burg. FWJK was first founded as a Quantity Surveying
business way back in 1953 in East London. One of the orig-
inal founders and directors Dave Williams Jones (whose sur-
name initials WJ is still embedded within the company name
FWJK) is still an active shareholder today and provides direc-
tion to the company as its CEO. The other original founders
Bill Francois and Paul Kgole have moved on.
In the ‘80s and ‘90s, FWJK expanded the business from
their roots in East London and opened offices in Durban,
Queenstown and Mthata. In the last five years they have
established and rapidly expanded their footprint with
highly successful property developments and offices in key
development areas of Cape Town and Johannesburg. 
They have now assumed the mantle of the country’s largest
privately held property developer and have secured over
four million square metres of new property developments in
the national pipeline. Today, Rhys is a key player of FWJK’s
national executive which oversees their 250 employees
and 9,500 contract workers.  New developments include
a number of mixed-use buildings, office accommodation,
residential apartments, industrial estates, medical facilities,
hotels, private hospitals and retail centres.
Besides being leading property developers, they are
also trail blazing innovators in the property development
investment space. They conceptionalised a lucrative real
estate investor model which they call the ‘co-development
at cost methodology’. This model was initiated to attract
investors after the impact of the global financial crisis
(GFC) in 2008. This model presents an opportunity for
private investors to get some skin in the game in the success
plans of FWJK’s new developments. The pioneering of this
innovative investment methodology which, for the first time
offered property investors the opportunity of investing in
newly built real estate developments on an “at cost” basis. It
offers opportunities for owners of land and those who wish
to get into property development but don’t have the time
to undertake investing with successful property developers.
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FEBRUARY/MARCH 2019 SA Real Estate Investor Magazine