South African-born real estate tycoon Barry Stuhler takes $4-million hit as Lighthouse shares plummet

Barry Stuhler, a South African-born real estate mogul, has suffered a substantial decline in the market value of his stake in Lighthouse Properties, a Malta-based real estate company, amidst recent sell-offs among investors.

As of July 4, the shares of Lighthouse Properties were trading at R 6.77 ($0.385) on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, representing a 6.65-percent drop from their opening price on July 28.

The company, with a diversified property portfolio that includes retail assets across France, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, and the United Kingdom, faced a significant downturn in the past 24 days.

Stuhler, also known as the managing director of Capital Property Fund, owns 9.72 percent of Lighthouse Properties, amounting to 172,699,222 ordinary shares.

Alongside the direct property holdings in France, Portugal, and Slovenia, Lighthouse Properties has a substantial presence in European-listed real estate and infrastructure securities.

Over the past 24 days, the share price of Lighthouse Properties on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange has declined from R6.77 ($0.385) on July 4 to R6.36 ($0.362) at the time of this report.

The significant decline resulted in substantial losses for the company’s shareholders, including Stuhler, who ranks as one of the richest investors on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange and the Stock Exchange of Mauritius.

The recent slump in the company’s shares caused the market value of Stuhler’s stake in Lighthouse Properties to plummet by R70.8 million ($4.01 million).

This significant slump caused the group’s market capitalization to slump from R1.17 billion ($66.3 million) at the start of business on July 4, 2023, to R1.10 billion ($62.25 million) as of the time of writing.