Africa’s real estate sector is driving the continent’s economic recovery forward with more than $800 million disclosed deals taking place in 2021 by Africa Property Investment (API) Summit.
The host of the summit, Kfir Rusin, said: “Africa’s real estate investors and developers are forging ahead and building for a new era and we’ve witnessed significant investments into emerging sectors of student and affordable housing, logistics, data centres and others.”
Rusin’s comments come ahead of this year’s free to attend virtual edition of the summit, which will attract more than 500 real estate deal makers from 30 African and international countries from 06-10 September 2021.
Having funded over 40% of the deals listed, Standard Bank has capitalized on its balance sheet, and broad African expertise to finance several eye-catching deals in 2021 across sectors and jurisdictions over the past 12 months.
The most high-profile of these deals have been the $300m debt refinance deal of Lango Real Estate (formerly Growthpoint Investec Africa) which is currently the largest sub Saharan Africa (SSA) real estate debt deal and the first cross-collaterized funding structure across multiple jurisdictions in SSA.
Additional deals by Standard Bank include a $5.5mn to refinance Africa Logistics Properties (ALP) in Kenya; a $9mn deal in the DRC, as well as the $10mn funding of the Metroplex Mall in Uganda.
According to Standard Bank’s Head of Real Estate Finance, Africa Regions, Niyi Adeleye, these deals are representative of the bank’s sustained commitment to their clients and efforts to building long-lasting relationships in the real estate sector and across the continent.
“In the new era, Standard Bank’s view is that our approach has to be holistic in considering both the market evolution and our client’s aspirations backed by credible considerations for key real estate fundamentals in our markets as they evolve,” says Adeleye.
Adding that Standard Bank will also continue to back client activities for our key clients and evolving sector participants as well as firmly encourage and support ESG themes and activities which are quite critical to our objectives as a market participant.
As Adeleye elaborates, “In this regard, we continue to collaborate, fund deals and follow the sustainable market trends in both the traditional commercial sectors and some of the emerging sectors like student housing, digital themed real estate assets and middle-income residential.”
