NAIROBI (CU)_About five years ago, pan-African mortgage financier Shelter Afrique fell into a liquidation crisis, as a few senior executives left the company over allegations of misappropriation of funds. Accordingly, the Nairobi-based lender was forced to repay a bond that was floated on the Nairobi Stock Exchange between 2013 and 2018. Now, as the company emerges from the crisis which barred it from borrowing several years ago, Shelter Afrique hopes to return to the market, with the aim of raising $1.25 billion in local-currency bonds by the end of 2021.
According to the company’s chief executive Andrew Chimphondah, the lender hopes to mobilize $500 million each from East Africa and Nigeria, and $250 million from French-speaking African nations. Another $500 million will be raised by the Nairobi-based lender through multilateral development financial institutions over the next five years. “We cannot disclose specific institutional details; however, sufficient to say the said DFIs stand ready to support us with competitively priced and longer tenured funding,” he told Bloomberg.
Founded in Kenya in 1982, Shelter Afrique is the only pan-African finance institution which exclusively supports the development of housing in the African continent. It was set up in partnership with 44 African Governments, the African Development Bank (AfDB) and the Africa Reinsurance Corporation (Africa-Re).
In early July this year, following the company’s return from its liquidity crisis, the government of Kenya strengthened its position as the top shareholder of Shelter Afrique by acquiring an additional 3.9 percent stake in the company for Sh1 billion. The move expanded Nairobi’s stake in the company from 14.82 per cent to 18.72 per cent. Meanwhile, the government of Nigeria and the AfDB owns 13.71 per cent and 13.25 per cent stake, respectively.
