Liberty Two Degrees’ super-regional malls achieve an unsurpassed international gold level excellence status in line with the SHORE-standard
06 May 2021

Liberty Two Degrees’ super-regional malls achieve an unsurpassed international gold level excellence status in line with the SHORE-standard – A first in Africa.

The Sandton City precinct and Eastgate Shopping Centre are Africa’s only SAFE certified retail destinations, scoring the highest global safety and security rating against 180 international assets.

In line with its strategy to continuously provide unrivalled experiential offerings at its shopping centres, Liberty Two Degrees (L2D) has purposefully invested in protecting the health and safety of its shoppers, tenants and service providers.

A first of many initiatives by L2D for the African continent, L2Ds’ co-owned super-regional shopping centres Sandton City Precinct and Eastgate Shopping Centre, have been certified as safe retail destinations in accordance to the SHORE-certification by international body, SAFE Asset Group. SAFE Asset Group offers the only internationally acknowledged resilience certification and has awarded the two superregional centres Gold Level Excellence for their ability to prevent, adapt, respond to, recover and learn from operational disruptions. This follows the certification of the L2D portfolio of assets as fully COVID-19 Compliant by the certification body.

Jonathan Sinden, L2D Chief Operations Officer says “We continuously strive to benchmark our retail assets against global standards. In doing so, we aim to show duty of care by providing our tenants and service providers with quality spaces that are safe, attractive and support them in their operations, while offering our shoppers and communities the best of breed experiential environments that are underpinned by safe and hygienic spaces in line with our Safe Spaces building block”.

Using the international SHORE-certification standard, the Sandton City Precinct and Eastgate Shopping Centre were measured against the 180-international shopping centres and assessed for their operational risk and resilience levels based on the six core variables of; crisis and business continuity management, safety and security management, tenant management, property protection, management system and risk management, and visitor management.

The Sandton City Precinct, which is made up of Sandton City and Nelson Mandela Square, ranked the highest in safety and security standards in the world out of the 180 shopping centres assessed by SAFE Asset Group, outperforming all other top international shopping centers.

Commenting on this achievement, Erik Engstrand CEO of SAFE Asset Group says “Sandton City Precinct and Eastgate Shopping Centre have accomplished great results. Not only do they have the paperwork to prove their efficiencies, but they have the operational procedures in place to match. These two shopping centres are well prepared to respond to any risk and security incident and bounce back swiftly from them because they and their teams are well trained, well versed and operationally excellent and resilient.”L2D already had safety and security measures in place across its portfolio of assets prior to the emergence of the pandemic. In a post COVID-19 world and as part of the response to the pandemic, L2D has intensified all protocol at the centres in the best interest of all its stakeholders.

“We are pleased that our efforts have been recognised and certified on a global scale. This is an important outcome in our health and safety journey and of paramount importance to enabling us to continue to successfully operate in this environment. This is why we seek to continuously benchmark our safety and security against the highest standards in line with Safe Spaces which seeks to achieve health and safety excellence and the wellbeing of our shoppers, tenants and service providers. This outcome is one we as co-owners of these centres can be very proud”.

L2D aims to carry out this assessment in the rest of its shopping environments in 2021.
“All the hard work and effort put into these centres in terms of setting efficient procedures, having effective plans in place and working closely with tenants and shopping centre management are to provide peace of mind to our stakeholders, ensuring that our centres are well prepared and provide the necessary due diligence” Sinden concludes.

Enquiries: Liberty Two Degrees investors@liberty2degrees.co.za

Image caption from left to right are as follows:

· John Cave - Group Head: Safety & Security
· Jonathan Sinden – Chief Operations Officer, Liberty Two Degrees
· Erik Engstrand – Chief Executive Officer, SAFE Asset Group
· Nikiwe Mkhabela – Asset Management Executive, Sandton City
. Kelly Belman – General Manager, Eastgate Shopping Centre

NOTES TO EDITORS

About Liberty Two Degrees Limited With a vision to be the leading South African, precinct-focused, retail-centred REIT, Liberty Two Degrees (L2D) is listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange as a Corporate REIT and is positioned for sustainable growth and the unlocking of stakeholder value for the long-term. L2D continues to create experiential spaces that benefit generations in line with its purpose, through innovative and unique experiences that attract tenants and shoppers to its malls. L2D’s vision and purpose guide its strategy and underpin its everyday business activities.
About Liberty Two Degrees’ portfolio The portfolio consists of quality, high-value properties in the retail, office and specialised sectors. The retail component generates the majority of its gross rental income, followed by office space and the specialised sector, which includes hotels, a hospital, a motor vehicle dealership and a gym.

Retail

The retail portfolio features iconic properties that are prime destination centres with high-level market dominance. Each asset has been green-star rated by the Green Building Council of South Africa, making it the first retail portfolio to be green-star rated in its entirety. The portfolio is also certified COVID-19 compliant by international certification body, SAFE Asset Group. The retail assets offer a dynamic tenant mix that is designed to meet the varying and ever-changing needs of consumers. Through a focused strategy L2D aims to future-proof its assets by creating spaces that provide a sense of community and go beyond the ordinary shopping experience. This is achieved through digital transformation initiatives and the execution of our asset masterplans as well as a sharpened focus on operational efforts and business activities.

The retail portfolio is as follows:
• Johannesburg: oSandton City Complex, Eastgate Complex, and Nelson Mandela Square
• Cape Town: Liberty Promenade Mall
• KwaZulu-Natal: Liberty Midlands Mall
• Bloemfontein: Botshabelo Mall

Office

The office component of the portfolio consists of offices that are attached to retail property within a mixedused precinct, as well as stand-alone offices. Our mixed-use precinct offices include Sandton City, Nelson Mandela Square, Eastgate and Melrose Arch. For the most part, these spaces are rented out to multiple tenants. Standalone offices include the Liberty Centre Head Office and Umhlanga Ridge and the Standard Bank Centre.

Specialised
The specialised element of the portfolio consists of prime rental space that is mostly located within the Melrose Arch complex, Sandton Convention Centre, Virgin Active Sandton, Melomed Hospital and automotive showrooms located in Richards Bay.

Hotels

Our hotel portfolio includes Garden Court Sandton, Sandton Sun and InterContinental Towers. The hotel portfolio is geared to luxury grading with Garden Court graded as a mid-tier offering.

About

L2D’s Strategic Value Drivers To enable sustainable value creation and reduce the effects of the challenging environment, a main focus for the year was on executing initiatives that align to our strategic value drivers. These are articulated as customer experience, tenant experience, employee experience and capital and risk management which translate into our financial outcomes and are underpinned by the good we do.
Our strategic value drivers measure our performance against key metrics that enable the creation of stakeholder value.

About

L2D’s building blocks L2D’s aim is to create spaces that enable personal, memorable human engagements and seamless interactions between retailers and consumers, continually driving authentic encounters through community-driven engagements and a strong focus on sustainable and ethical practices. This has been articulated through the L2D strategic building blocks, which help futureproof the assets and truly set them apart in the market and sharpen the focus of L2D’s efforts and business activities. The L2D building blocks are:
• Good Spaces: L2D’s shopping malls are ecosystems that provide trading and experiential environments for some of the world’s most iconic brands as well as brands in high demand. L2D understands the importance of partnering with its stakeholders to accelerate its positive impact on the natural environment. L2D remains bold in driving its net zero commitments, which is evident at a number of its business operations and sites. L2D continues to reduce carbon emissions, water use and waste generation as it moves towards achieving its net zero sustainability target by 2030. Supportive initiatives have been implemented to achieve this goal.

• Smart Spaces: L2D aims to secure and sustain its leading position in the market by remaining at the forefront of innovative design thinking. The creation of smart environments that integrate technology to enhance the customer and retailer experience is a key initiative in this strategic growth area. Through Smart Spaces, L2D aims to accelerate its roadmap to create the seamless interaction between digital and physical retail.

• Interactive Spaces: Interactive Spaces is about providing an interchange of ideas and experiences within the L2D malls. The emphasis is on interaction, a fast pace, excitement, experience and stimulus, with a vision to create vibrant and diverse spaces with experience at their heart. Interactive Spaces encourages common ownership, placemaking and enjoyment of the physical environments in which L2D operates.

• Safe Spaces: L2D’s building blocks are all underpinned by Safe Spaces. L2D aims to drive a clearly defined mall strategy that ensures the mall environments hold the highest standard of safety and security for tenants and shoppers. L2D has been affirmed by SAFE Shopping Centres, a Global certification and advisory company, as the first responsible owner in Africa to achieve international certification following a Covid-19 assessment, taking the extra steps to ensure duty of care for tenants and shoppers.