Our Projects
Alchemy Corporate Property Advisors has a track record of successful alliances that have resulted in millions of Rands in bottom-line savings for occupiers.
"Just doing it” for Nike
In 2008 during a protracted but ultimately successful negotiation on East Rand Galleria, an unprecedented number of Nike’s requirements in terms of lease terminology were attained (working with Old Mutual no less), and a site with great potential was secured for their Factory Outlet concept at a very reasonable rental.
Subsequently Alchemy has been able to secure a flagship store at Sandton City for Nike, as well as high profile premises at Centurion Mall, Cresta, The Zone, EastGate Mall, Tygervalley and the V&A Waterfront.
New Factory stores have followed at Mamelodi Crossing and Vosloorus, as well as a temporary store in Umlazi.
Major expansions and relocations were also negotiated at existing stores in Woodmead, Access Park, Atterbury Value Mart and EastPoint.
Taking Toys to Gauteng
Alchemy added 9 stores around the country to Toy Kingdom’s 4-store Cape Town stronghold. A small-footprint store (to quickly get into the Gauteng market) opened at Forest Hill in 2014, with large format sites soon following at Menlyn Park, Centurion Mall and Cresta during 2015, with East Rand Mall and Woodlands following in 2017.
And to top off their Cape Town dominance, we’ve secured them a store at Blue Route Mall, and we’ve dipped our toes into KZN market by securing stores at Gateway & Ballito, with Midlands Mall to follow.
"Score”-ing points for Pick n Pay
Alchemy was able to negotiate new long term leases for a number of old-style Score stores in Soweto, in the process securing very useful Tenant Installation allowances, as well as capex from the landlord to pay for the stores to be enlarged 40-50%.
This allowed for the relatively cost effective re-branding and up-sizing into the Pick n Pay format and an almost overnight marketing / image boost for the brand in Soweto.
Go well, go Shell
Shell SA had a tricky problem: they had a very high volume petrol station in Cape Town’s Foreshore precinct that had a rebuilding clause hanging over it, jeopardizing their long-term occupancy of this valuable site. Indeed, potential purchasers of the property had indicated they would invoke the rebuilding clause in order to replace Shell with a higher paying tenant.
In a complex deal Shell & Michael Schirnig negotiated a suspension of this rebuilding clause in exchange for a higher rental and Shell’s early vacation of under-performing premises at Cavendish Square. Both properties were held by the same landlord.
The slightly higher rental on the first set of premises, coupled with the opportunity to redevelop the Cavendish space 2 years earlier than expected secured the landlord’s agreement, while Shell has a top petrol station securely leased for the next fourteen years.
“Hooray for tenant activists,” says Shell’s Richard Jackson, “They’re long overdue.”
Helping Nashua Mobile make a tough call
When Nashua Mobile saw the writing on the wall and decided to get out of the 3rd party Cellphone niche, Alchemy was appointed end-September 2014 to help dispose of stores which were closing on 28 October!
24 stores were disposed of before Christmas, with a further 8 in the early part of 2015. And a handful of stores with very short remaining lease periods were also administratively resolved, and in more than half the instances no reinstatement liabilities were incurred (significant savings in terms of cost/hassle).
Healthy boost to the Montagu Dried Fruit & Nuts business
During 2015 Alchemy assisted Montagu franchisees with 18 lease renewals, saving them on average 5 times our fees in hard costs, plus secured significant lease terminology improvements in most cases.
14 new stores were also secured to help Montagu grow – their brand has achieved great results, with both customers and potential franchisees responding well to Montagu’s offer of “Sunshine in a packet”.
Mutual benefit – M&F’s renegotiated lease in Benoni
When M&F’s lease in their 3 000m² regional office in Benoni was up for renewal, several options were investigated: 1) renewing, 2) renewing and refurbishing or 3) relocating to other premises (including a nearby property that they owned).
After exhaustive analyses of alternatives, it was decided to sell the owned property in Benoni and refurbish the leased premises to upgrade the public image as well as staff efficiency/morale. In exchange for a long(ish) lease, the landlord was convinced to reduce the rental by almost 30% and provide a small fit out allowance to pay for some of the refurbishment.
In addition, a space planning exercise allowed the branch to reduce it’s useage by 17%, from the 5 upper floors in a terraced building to just the lower/larger 3 floors garnering further cost reductions.
Relying on a 3rd party
Relyant Retail Limited asked me (while still with Old Mutual) to reduce its rental commitment on the surplus space created by the merger of Beares and Amrel.
Through direct sub-letting efforts and aggressive marketing, we were able to sub-let and/or cancel leases covering 28 000m² throughout Southern Africa.
This saved Relyant more than R15 million in rentals on vacant leased space.
"The resultant cost savings will help us to invest in key brands and focused extension of our business," said then-Relyant director Robbie Butler.
Facelift in the Eastern Cape
Edgars Consolidated stores inherited a number of mediocre stores in the Eastern Cape with their purchase of Discom from New Clicks Holdings, which became increasingly apparent during the downturn of 2009.
Within 2 weeks of being asked to assist, offers had been triggered for 7 of the 10 underperforming sites, helping Edcon give their portfolio a neat nip-and-tuck.
Stalking Sandton City
Securing space at the high traffic/spend Sandton City is a key component of any retail portfolio, so it took us some time to rise above the “noise” of other competing retailers and secure a suitable store for Hurley.
A combination of persistence and educating the centre management as to Hurley’s virtues (ably supported by a sensational info pack developed by Hurley) saw us open a world class store in time for Christmas trade 2013.
Plain sailing with Safmarine
Safmarine is a large shipping company that was taken over by A.P Moller of Denmark in the early 2000’s. With their long-term lease of 11 000m² at Safmarine House in Cape Town CBD coming toward an end, Safmarine began considering alternatives – new developments and other vacancies. In addition, with ever more clever use of furniture and design, they found that they required a lot less space than they currently occupied.
A team under my guidance interceded on behalf of Safmarine with the Landlord and negotiated a complex deal involving a market reversion rental in exchange for an additional 3 years on the lease as well as the immediate handing back of over 1 000m² of surplus space and the handback of a further 1000m² of surplus space after a further 12 months.
In the end, Safmarine had a more useful block of space at a very reasonable rental (almost 20% reduction), while the landlord had secured a lease extension of 3 years in a CBD market where it is hard to predict vacancy trends 3-5 years out.
Creating a decent “habitat” for ABSA
The past decade in the Somerset West/Strand market has seen more than 50% of retail activity shift to the hyper-successful Somerset Mall node. And Standard Bank followed suit securing a stand-alone building on an outparcel of the Somerset Mall site to make the most of passing traffic.
Alchemy was able to identify a suitable space for ABSA in the Habitat Centre, adjacent to the Mall and on the main access road, providing a highly visible set of premises at a below-market rental, with a useful mix of ground floor retail space and cheaper 1st floor office accommodation.
The 1st floor tenant relocated to the Mall, the ground floor tenant mix was reshuffled to accommodate ABSA’s retail requirement and after significant engineering input, an internal staircase was punched into the pre-stressed 1st floor slab to provide better vertical circulation.
A-Z property services for Multiserv
Alchemy provided a variety of services to the 200 store Multiserv portfolio, SA’s leading shoe repair/key-cutting/service brand, including lease administration, rental payments to landlords, site selection and lease renewals/renegotiations.
We also disposed of >10 under-performing stores, in 6 instances securing a full lease cancellation.
Making the best of a bad situation
The process of converting their Score brand stores into the Pick n Pay or Boxer formats unfortunately left a number of stores surplus, where the site either didn’t merit the significant investment involved in an upgrade, or where an existing PnP group store was too close by.
Alchemy sold 36 stores as going concerns (hence protecting ±1 500 jobs and minimising Score’s possible retrenchment costs and reputational risk, while also securing sub-rental income). In a further 4 cases, where going concern sales were impractical, the cancellation route was successfully followed.
In this instance, in order to secure a property solution (minimise risk related to >R60 million outstanding lease obligations), Alchemy has had to play business broker (unlocking >R50 million for fixtures & stock), an example of our commitment to getting the job done.
Fashion Africa
FashAf retained my team for a short period in 2001 (just prior to their liquidation, as it turned out) to reduce their monthly rental bill.
In addition to cancelling several leases on surplus stores and negotiating lower rentals on numerous premises, saving almost R4 million, we also orchestrated a complex deal whereby Gensec released Fashaf from an onerous 14 year lease commitment on a surplus Cape Town warehouse in exchange for a buyer of the property and a cancellation fee from Fashaf.
We followed that up by assisting them in kick-starting a new brand – Giant Stores – by sourcing two of the first 3 pilot stores, covering more than 10 000sqm of retail space. One of these stores – in Nelspruit – allowed Shoprite to get out of an onerous commitment on a surplus store of its own.
Cashing in for Cash Converters
Alchemy initially secured a new site for their Durban North franchisee, in a very tight market, and subsequently flagship stores at Festival Mall, Comaro Crossing (near The Glen), Montana Crossing (near Kolonnade), Menlyn Retail Park, Liberty Promenade (Mitchell’s Plein), Village @ Horizon and Arbor Crossing (Toti).
