Positioned to add value to Atterbury Property Fund‘s newly launched real estate holding fund, Allan Swiegers’s esteemed career started 33 years ago with Deloitte after completing his BCom degree and his BCom (Hons) (Acc) and CTA at the University of Pretoria.
Swiegers joined Deloitte in 1984 as a trainee accountant where he successfully completed his Board Exam that same year, joining the partnership only four and a half years later.
His career at Deloitte included a succession of senior positions starting with taking charge of its Pretoria office in 2000 where he served many private-sector and public-sector institutions, including prestigious clients like Vodacom and Steinhoff.
Swiegers also served as a Deloitte board member and on the Executive Committee in 2005 as well as Chief Operating Officer of Deloitte Southern Africa and then COO of Deloitte Africa.
Commenting on Swiegers’s appointment, Wouter de Vos, CEO of Atterbury Property Fund, says: “To have Allen join an already strong team is a real coup for us. He is an exceptionally dedicated, astute, knowledgeable and principled man as proven throughout his career with Deloitte, and we are truly honoured to have him with us as we embark on this relatively new and very exciting venture.”
Swiegers’s appointment builds on an already strong bond with the Atterbury team. Swiegers is a former partner of Pierre Tredoux, the current chairman of Atterbury Holdings, from their time at Deloitte. “I was also, at one point, responsible for Atterbury co-founder Francois van Niekerk’s InfoTech business in the early 1990’s, where I was very ably assisted by the then article clerk, Louis van der Watt, the other co-founder of Atterbury,” he explains.
In 1997 Swiegers was also responsible for the development of Deloitte’s then new Pretoria office where he worked very closely with James Ehlers – the project manager from the developers’ side – who now heads Atterbury Property Development. It was also during this time that he worked with, Zahn Hulme, who heads Atterbury’s marketing and is responsible for driving the Atterbury Trust, who was a manager in Deloitte at the time.
“During my time as Partner-in-Charge of Deloitte Pretoria, and later COO of Deloitte, I kept regular contact with the team at Atterbury as it was an important client of Deloitte. I just loved their passion, their vision, their culture and I proudly celebrated their successes with them. I can easily and proudly associate myself with Atterbury and its people,” Swiegers says.
While at Deloitte Swiegers rented 19 buildings across Southern Africa from eight different landlords and developed seven buildings with seven different developers.
“Fortunately the last one was in Pretoria with the Atterbury team, and the difference was obvious,” says Swiegers. “It was a pleasure to deal directly with the owner and decision-makers who never went back on their word. I am looking forward to adding my experience and expertise, to that of the property development and property management experts at Atterbury.”