11 January 2013, Nairobi: Shelter Afrique, the pan-African finance institution dedicated to financing affordable housing across the continent, has confirmed the first close of the Pan African Housing Fund (PAHF), at US$ 41.5 million in December 2012.
PAHF is the first private equity fund focused exclusively on housing development in Africa (outside of South Africa), providing equity and quasi equity finance to developers, and was specifically designed to respond to an ever growing housing shortage in Eastern and Southern Africa. The Fund is targeting a final close of US$ 100 million in 2013.
Launched in 2011, Shelter Afrique has outsourced PAHF’s management to Phatisa and worked closely with a pool of African and European development finance institutions (DFIs) during the fundraising stage.
Alassane Ba, Shelter Afrique’s Managing Director, commented on the first close: “Shelter Afrique is proud to have ended 2012 with the successful first closing of The Pan African Housing Fund. The PAHF will fill the risk capital gap, which is our scarcest financial resource, and we see this as a key strategic investment toward improving the supply of affordable housing in Africa.”
The Fund will invest in middle income and lower-middle income residential developments and mixed-use real estate projects, where both residential and commercial properties are combined.
It will be investing primarily in the major urban areas in Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania, Mozambique and Zambia, with a focus on mitigating environmental, social and governance risks. The PAHF will also work closely with developers to increase both their technical and scale capabilities.