Actis announces details of its new 18,000m2 mall in Douala, with French supermarket chain Carrefour as the anchor tenant. The new mall will be the largest in Cameroon.
The new Douala Grand Mall will be made up on 18,000m2 of retail and leisure space whose anchor tenant will be a new Carrefour supermarket. The new Carrefour store will be its second outlet in Cameroon, following the opening of the first in Bonamoussadi, Douala, in December 2017. The mall’s leisure space will include a five screen cinema, several restaurants and a children’s play zone. The second phase of development of the new site will be a business park comprising office buildings across 12 acres.
Douala Grand Mall is situated in the Bonapriso district. Carrefour will open a store under its Carrefour Market supermarket banner and will be competing with three nearby supermarkets, Sodicam’s Casino and Leader Price supermarkets and local supermarket chain Kado. The new store is expected to have between 1,500m2 to 2,000m2 of retail space.
Cameroon’s new mall is developed by Actis & local partner Craft Development. Actis is a leading growth markets investor. It holds a majority interest in Cameroon’s part state-owned energy supplier Eneo. Actis has also developed malls across Africa, including Ghana’s Accra Mall, Abuja’s Jabi Lake Mall and Nairobi’s Garden City Mall.
The Carrefour supermarket will be developed in partnership with CFAO Retail, Carrefour’s franchise partner in West Africa. CFAO currently operates three Carrefour supermarkets: one in Cameroon and two in Côte d’Ivoire. CFAO has plans to develop the Carrefour retail brand in eight Western & Central African countries by creating a network of shopping malls, hypermarkets and supermarkets. The countries CFAO plans to focus on are Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Nigeria, Senegal, Ghana, Gabon, Congo & the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The new Carrefour store follows the expansion plan the brand owner has announced for Cameroon, after the announcement in late 2017, the country’s capital Yaoundé would receive a PlaYce shopping mall in Q1 2019, which will include a Carrefour outlet.
