Real Estate Investor Magazine South Africa Real Estate Investor Magazine - April 2017 | Page 11

PIETER FEENSTRA
Tshwane involved design and project management for
a variety of civil engineering services and he’d cut his
teeth as a director at a local construction company,
where he managed several construction projects
and was responsible for the business’ bottom line
performance. In addition, Feenstra had also spent
time as a consulting engineer for a multidisciplinary
practice called WLPU Consulting Engineers.
Getting started
Feenstra decided to secure his first property
development project before cutting all ties with his
own consulting firm. “I negotiated control of a prime
piece of land from a large Listed group. As I had very
limited funds, experience and balance sheet, I decided
to pull together a few partners to help me bring the
deal together,” Feenstra explains. He describes the
outcome as “a modest neighbourhood shopping centre
of about 10 000m2”.
The Telkom years
In 2000, Feenstra was approached by Telkom to
create a property division for its extensive property
holdings in South Africa. At the time, Telkom had 6
000 ‒ 7 000 properties and another 10 000 technical
properties scattered across many departments,
business units and regions