Vice President of IMANI Africa, Bright Simons, has debunked claims that the Accra Mall, West Hills Mall and Kumasi City Mall were sold at $200 million dollars.
Reports came in days ago that these three major retail shopping malls operating in the country have now been taken-over by a South African real estate investment firm in a deal worth US$200 million.
However, Mr Simons accuses the media of “giving free rein to PR agents to push fake news through at a worrying pace.”
Given his ongoing investigation into the World Bank’s IFC investments in malls as part of a long-term project aimed at assessing whether these investments genuinely benefit local communities, his “antenna was immediately raised” when he noticed the heavily PR-driven media coverage on the issue.
“When I saw the PR-heavy press coverage, my antenna jacked up since I have been investigating the World Bank’s IFC’s mall investments as part of a long-term project that seeks to understand how and if investments by the World Bank truly benefit people on the ground. First off (no prizes for guessing), the PR that the three Ghanaian malls were sold for $200 million was false. Newsrooms are very busy nowadays, giving free rein to PR agents to push fake news through at a worrying pace.”
“And, yes, the World Bank’s IFC is somehow involved in this affair. The company (Lango) that bought the 4 malls began life as an Investec-Growthpoint entity that was funded by the IFC in May 2018 with a $40 million contingent-equity facility. Attacq’s and Hyprop’s stakes in the four malls actually all sold for a total of $60 million. Their stakes in the three Ghanaian malls fetched ~$27 million. Consider that in 2017, Sanlam valued the Accra Mall alone (the smallest of the 3 malls) at $129 million, up 100% in value from the $65 million it assessed in 2012 when, together with Attacq, it bought it from Actis.”
Read post below for more details:
Four malls in Ghana and Nigeria, including West Africa’s largest mall (West Hills), are being sold by two real estate players – Hyprop and Atterbury’s Attacq – at a considerable loss to a lucky buyer: a young, ambitious, pan-African, real estate investor called, Lango.
The four… pic.twitter.com/28sjPb9fbT
— Bright Simons (@BBSimons) August 18, 2024
