Africa-Press – South-Africa. People are coming, they stay, and they spend,” said Liberty Two Degrees CEO, Amelia Beattie on Monday.
The owner of Sandton City and Melrose Arch was presenting its trading update for the ten months to the end of September, where Beattie told investors how the group’s shopping malls had exceeded 2019 levels on many financial metrics.
For starters, the average monthly foot count in the first nine months of 2022 was 9.8% higher than in 2019, before the pandemic changed the way people shopped, increasing clicks instead of footfall to malls. It was also 29.6% ahead of 2021 levels. The group’s portfolio turnover of R14.65 billion was 17% ahead of what L2D achieved in September 2019. Beattie said all three quarters of 2022 have surpassed 2019 levels.
And all these numbers have not captured the Black Friday weekend, which turned out to be one of the best for L2D’s biggest shopping mall, Sandton City. Beattie said she’s also anticipating upbeat performance during the festive season as new retailers and new experiences have been moving into L2D’s malls, drawing people to spend their weekends there.
“We’ve just been through the Black Friday weekend, and foot count was up 15% in our portfolio versus 2021.
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She said there was still 20% less traffic to the group’s malls on the day compared to 2019, as some people will only get paid this Wednesday; Sandton City’s footfall on Black Friday was 9% below 2019. But the numbers on Saturday were just as good as on Black Friday itself.
“We saw a huge pickup on the weekend. On a normal end-of-the-month weekend, we would normally get around 80 000 people in Sandton City in a day. We had 120 000 people on Black Friday and 110 000 people on Saturday,” said Beattie.
She said this proved how super regional malls “are alive and well” despite the predictions of the calamity in the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic. Both super-regional malls in L2D’s stable – Sandton City and Eastgate Mall – have recorded footfall ahead of 2019 levels since March this year. Since May, their footfall has been two digits ahead of the comparable pre-pandemic months. These were the hardest-hit centres during the pandemic.
Furthermore, it’s not just foot traffic that’s shooting the lights out. Trading density for the entire L2D retail portfolio in portfolio exceeded what the group reported in September 2019 by 12.1%. Sandton City has achieved a trading density of more than R6 000 per square metre, which Beattie said has never been seen in a mall of its size in SA before.
“It’s way above what we have seen in pre-Covid-19 levels, and it’s just an indication of an extraordinary asset that continues to outperform all levels… At R6 000 per square metre, it’s certainly the highest super regional and regional malls,” she said.
Beattie added that while some of the smaller malls and tiny shopping centres would achieve trading densities above this, the MSCI benchmark for regional and super regional malls is a trading density of less than R3 000 a square meter. She said Eastgate Mall was also well ahead of MSCI super regional benchmark.
And it keeps getting better for Sandton City as more international retailers are taking note of these rising numbers and want to be part of it. Beattie said L2D has been talking to a handful of those.
Some don’t yet have a presence in SA, and those already here want to expand. Examples include H&M Home, which opened a standalone store in Sandton City this year and the first NBA Store in Africa that opened in that mall this October.
“That really talks to the quality trading environment, their confidence in the customer we have here, and the spend they can attract in these stores. We look forward to some new tenants that we’ll be opening in the next few weeks, and we look forward to a great festive season. Customers will be spoilt for choice,” she added.
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