Real Estate Investor Magazine South Africa June 2015 | Page 25

K

hapametsi Maleke comes from humble
beginnings. She was raised in Bloemfontein
in the Free State, where her father worked
as a teacher and her mother as a professional nurse.
However, Khapametsi’s mother showed her through
example to work hard and employ ingenuity and
entrepreneurial spirit to turn her dreams into reality.
Like her mother, Khapametsi’s late father also made
a huge impact on her life, teaching her the value of
education and the importance of investing for the
future.
After her parents’ retirement, the family returned
to Lesotho. Thanks to her academic excellence,
Khapametsi won bursaries that paid for most of
her education, which eventually culminated in an
MBA Degree from the Institute of International
Management in Maastricht, Netherlands.
After university, Khapametsi joined the Lesotho
National Development Corporation, starting a
successful career that extended over 15 years at different
senior management levels.
Corporate career
Today, Khapametsi is an experienced businesswoman
who plays down her immense success. She is currently
serving on various corporate company boards in which
she is invested in various sectors of industry including
security, media, technology, property and hospitality.
She is also a Non- Executive Member of the Africa
Board of one of the three biggest banks in South Africa.
Khapametsi’ s career in corporate South Africa
began around 1992 in Johannesburg, where she joined
the founding staff of Thebe Investments Corporation
as a business development manager, before she and
a partner established their own investment holding
company.
Property development
Her company cut its ‘first teeth” in property
development through a joint investment with the Gary
Player Group for development of the “Goose Valley”
Golf Development in Plettenberg Bay, consisting of
the construction of the clubhouse and 72 apartment
units on a nine-hole Gary Player signature golf course.
This was a steep learning curve for Khapametsi and
her team particularly in terms of the construction
challenges that faced emerging developers at the
time. Despite this, the development was successfully
completed and it remains an illustrious milestone of
her career in this industry.

www.reimag.co.za

Construction
With this experience under its belt, the company went
further to promote and set- up Makhosi “Chiefs”
Construction, one of the first black construction
companies at the time.
Makhosi Construction, in various JV consortia with
the top construction companies in South Africa and
the sub-region, handled large development projects
such as the Sheraton Hotel in Pretoria, The Glen
Shopping Centre in the South of Johannesburg,
Bavianspoort Prison in Nelspruit and the Malmesbury
prison housing units in the Cape among others.
In all these projects the company would take
responsibility to source products and services from
emerging contractors and consulting firms in order to
impact positively on their development and contribute
meaningfully to the local communities. Some of these
contractors and consulting firms are still operational to
this day.

“Khapametsi is an experienced
businesswoman who plays down
her immense success.”
Real estate agency
Khapametsi’s passion for property later spanned
into lifestyle properties and she bought a property in
Bakoven, Cape Town, which she now rents out.
She was so impressed by the youthful energy,
professionalism and expertise of the estate agent who
sold her the property that she later joined him and
others to conceive the idea of Property Avenue, the
only black-owned real estate company operating on
the Atlantic Sea Board of Cape Town.
Property Avenue sells luxury properties to high
net-worth individuals, professionals, business owners,
celebrities and young upwardly mobile executives both
in South Africa and internationally. The company seeks
to create an “Avenue to your Dream Home” through
a careful selection of properties that appeal to and
match buyers’ lifestyles, while also establishing a path
for sustainable wealth creation for its clients. Dealing
with high net-worth clients, the company also offers
destination management, provided by sister companies
Travel Avenue and Holiday Avenue.

RESOURCES
Property Avenue
JUNE 2015 SA Real Estate Investor

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