MASTER INVESTOR
commercial property and residential development sector and to focus on property turnarounds .
‘ The Deal ’ reality show
In 2015 TV producer Howard Fyvie , followed Gawie around on a real life property turnaround for a TV series called ‘ The Deal ’ ( www . thedeal . tv ). The show follows Gawie and his team across South Africa in their quest to turn around a degraded building into an architectural gem in only one month . The property was one of his commercial property deals in Radium street in Klerksdorp , his original home town .
Gawie ’ s favourite deal before Bahari Bay
In 2016 Gawie signed to buy ‘ The heads Shopping Centre , a 10,000m2 retail shopping centre with a Checkers anchor in Lydenberg that had been on the market for over 3 years before he saw it . The centre had more than 4,000m2 of space that was completely vacant for more than 10 years and most of the listed retail property funds looked at the deal and rejected it outright and could not see the value or upside of this centre working .
Gawie saw it differently and had a ‘ aha moment ’ as they saw a need for new tenants in the centre based on discussions with tenants and the community . During the Due Diligence process they managed to completely fill up all the vacancies with new tenants before they took transfer of the property . They took the net operating income ( income after expenses ) from R5,4 million to R10 million on transfer date and today he still owns it together with two other partners .
This is where Gawie says where Tieleo brings real value , where they take something that looks like it is dead in the water and then resuscitate it to success .
The Bahari Bay development deal
When the Bahari Bay deal first came onto Gawie ’ s radar screen more than two years ago , it piqued his interest from the start to investigate the opportunity in more depth . In his formative years Gawie had spent family holidays on vacation in the Shelley Beach area in the KZN South Coast , so he was familiar with the area and its surrounds from his childhood and he completely fell in love with the area .
24 MARCH / APRIL 2023 SA Real Estate Investor Magazine