Durban is being fixed and is delivering for Southern Sun again

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JSE-listed hotels and leisure giant Southern Sun, in which fellow listed company Hosken Consolidated Investments has a material stake, has been very active on the market over the last few years.

The group’s share price hit a record high in February at around R11.

And for context, we reported back in 2024, it hitting a record of around R7-a-share at that time, and that was after the Covid-19 fallout in 2020, and the recovery post that period that affected most companies on the JSE.

Southern Sun’s share price

Now, Southern Sun’s activity in the market seems to have moved beyond recovery to growth and expansion, with deals signed – both new hotels as well as retaining key properties in its portfolio, such as the Elangeni & Maharani hotel on the Durban beachfront.

Read/listen:
No impact on SA hotels from Middle East conflict, says Southern Sun
Southern Sun’s hotel occupancies boosted by G20, transient demand
Southern Sun signs Durban beachfront hotel leases with eThekwini
Southern Sun eyes Cape Town Foreshore developments
Southern Sun secures ‘sexy hotel’ at iconic R5bn Oceans Umhlanga development

That activity looks set to continue with some big hotel developments planned for Cape Town, and that’s the foreshore area next door to the Cape Town ICC and Southern Sun’s landmark Cullinan Hotel.

There are also plans around the Beverly Hills Hotel, which seem to be gaining some traction. The Southern Sun group released its annual results last month and a lot of the projects were mentioned in the results presentation with analysts and investors.

For more insights and to talk about the group’s performance, as well as its growth plans, we are joined on this week’s episode by Marcel von Aulock, who is no stranger on The Property Pod. But it’s the first time we have him on the podcast this year.

Marcel von Aulock, CEO of JSE-listed Southern Sun. Image: Supplied

Von Aulock is group CEO and talks about the turnaround he is seeing in Durban and KwaZulu-Natal, with a double-digit recovery in its performance there complementing its strong performance in Cape Town, and a recovery in the Sandton market too, on the back of South Africa’s hosting of the G20 Leader’s Summit in Johannesburg last year.

Read/listen:
Pareto secures 100% of Sandton Convention Centre and prime hotels in R1.1bn deal
Southern Sun rising
Standard Bank Group’s L2D expects big G20 Summit boost for Sandton
Tsogo Sun says Durban ‘is the strongest hotel market in SA’ [Nov 2020]

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For previous episodes of The Property Pod, click here.