Shelter Afrique, a Nairobi-based housing development company, plans to sell KES 1 billion (USD 13 million) of three-year bonds to fund new projects. Securities worth KES 700 million will be sold by July 27 and the balance by September, Deputy Managing Director Mazi Ositadinma Okonkwo said. The notes will trade on the Fixed Income Securities Market segment of the Nairobi Stock Exchange, the Capital Markets Authority (CMA), which granted approval for the sale of the notes, said yesterday.

Arrangers of the bond include CFC Stanbic Ltd., Stanbic Investment Management Services (East Africa) Ltd., both units of Standard Bank Group Ltd., and Kenya Commercial Bank Ltd., the authority said. Shelter Afrique was established in 1982 to provide loans, credit guarantees, and trade financing for property development on the continent, especially low-cost housing projects, according to its web site. The money from the sale, the company’s third since 2000, will be used to build 300 housing units in Mombasa, Nairobi and Kisumu, Ositadinma Okonkwo said.

Shelter Afrique on July 15 got a low-interest loan worth EUR 10 million (USD 14 million) from the French Development Agency, which it will use to extend credit to housing financiers in Zambia, Burkina Faso, Niger, and Madagascar, according to a statement posted on Shelter Afrique’s site.

ChairmanKing.com recently reported that real estate markets around Africa have been holding up relatively well, in spite of the global economic crisis.

Visit Shelter Afrique’s website
Visit the Capital Markets Authority’s website
Visit the Nairobi Stock Exchange’s website

Source(s):
Bloomberg News