Nick Wilson

Property Editor

Heartland Properties, a wholly owned subsidiary of speciality product and services company AECI, will be rolling out extensive chunks of land for development over the next 10 to 15 years.

Heartland’s new CEO Anthony Diepenbroek, who assumes his post from the start of next month, said yesterday he would be “tasked with realising the value” from land that has become surplus to AECI needs.

Diepenbroek was previously MD of JSE-listed iFour Properties and a director of Pangbourne Properties. The large chunk of land is situated in Modderfontein, adjacent to the N3, and at Somerset West, adjacent to the N2, and stretches over 2320ha.

“My task will be to develop land for sale to developers and users. I think it’s a brilliant opportunity to enable AECI to realise value on that land,” said Diepenbroek.

The land will be redeveloped into commercial, industrial and residential use in the next 10 to 15 years.

He said there could be different formats to the way the land was rolled out. For example Heartland may opt to team up with a developer, or in other cases it may just sell the land. Although Diepenbroek conceded the property market was difficult at the moment, given high interest rates and inflation, he said in the case of Heartland there was a “long-term development pipeline” and there “will always be value in land”.

AECI said it was “confident” that with Diepenbroek’s “visionary guidance and strategic approach to land redevelopment” Heartland would “deliver value that meets shareholders’ expectations in the years ahead”.

Source: Business Day