A pan-African real estate joint venture made up of Investec Asset Management, Growthpoint Properties and the International Finance Corporation (IFC) has received $212m (€242.8m) from institutional investors.
The partners said Growthpoint Investec African Properties (GIAP) has secured more than 40% of its fundraising target and will now seek to invest in income-producing commercial real estate assets in select cities across the African continent.
In November 2015, Investec Asset Management and South African REIT Growthpoint Properties entered into the joint venture as they partnered with IFC to create the platform to invest across Africa.
Growthpoint committed $50m to the vehicle, targeting $500m from institutional investors, while IFC invested $40m.
Targeted investments will be further diversified by sector, with GIAP’s mandate spanning office, retail and industrial properties.
Norbert Sasse, the group CEO of Growthpoint Properties, said: “For Growthpoint, the commencement of GIAP furthers our stated strategy to introduce new revenue streams with our fund management business.”
Thomas Reilly, the managing director of Growthpoint Investec African Property Management, said: “A key issue for real estate developers across the continent has been their ability to efficiently exit completed assets so they can recycle and re-deploy capital.
“We are working closely with a number of players in the space who consider GIAP’s entry as an asset aggregator a welcome development in this regard.”
Thabo Khojane, the managing director of Investec Asset Management Africa, said:”We believe that GIAP is well positioned and has the necessary backing to add to the growth of this market over time, attract the necessary skills, and extract value on a sustainable basis.”
