Real Estate Investor Magazine South Africa May/June 2015 | Page 46

MY STORY

Africa’s Leading Entrepreneur
and Property Mogul
Trendsetter And Innovator
BY NEALE PETERSEN

T

ebogo Magashoa (39) is a visionary
entrepreneur, and property investor. He
is currently Chairman of Talis Holdings
Group, a company, which has diversified investments
into property, finance, infrastructure development,
agriculture, vehicle fleet management, ICT and mining.
The subsidiaries of the Talis Holdings Group
include Tebfin a financial services provider, Talis
property developments, Cloudseed a leading Internet
service provider and Fleetmatics VMS, a specialist in
fleet management and vehicle tracking. He qualified as
an electrical engineer, which has helped him grow his
property development company into the success it is
today.
His role model includes Deng Xiaopeng, who led
the economic reform in China by pulling the country
out of dire economic straits and making it into an
economic super power.
Where the property bug started
Tebogo’s foray into property all started with the
development of the Pan Africa Mall, which was first
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MAY 2015 SA Real Estate Investor

conceptualized in 2003. It is located in Alexandra,
Johannesburg, which is the oldest township in South
Africa, with a history spanning some 103 years.
The development was eventually completed, realized
and launched with an official opening on 24 May
2009. It was the first integrated sub-regional township
mall and transport facility in South Africa. Two other
high profile township developments Protea Mall and
Maponya Mall were developed and completed soon
afterwards.
Tebogo started the development process with many
challenges including no major partners or institutional
funding, only a passion to make a difference in the
community. He needed to get the community behind
him to get complete buy-in for the taxi facility.
The historic site of the mall is a traditional meeting
point for the people of Alexandra. This site is also a
major public transport node with over 2000 taxis.
Tebogo funded the participation of the taxi associations
in the development, as a way of aligning their interests
to that of the developments. This turned out to be
the best decision he made with regard to getting key
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