The group managing director, Haldane McCall Plc, Dr. Edward Akinlade said the company would be raising N250 billion capital through bond instruments to fund affordable houses in Nigeria.
Akinlade stated this in an interview to the media. He said, “we have a huge plan next year. We will be raising a N250 billion bond, in tranches of N25 billion. We have started work on that and will be coming to the capital market next year.”
He noted that the purpose of it is to fund affordable housing, saying that “we have started negotiation with a number of our partners that will be off takers for that. A good example is the Labour Congress, TUC, and also Lagos state government.”
He explained that the company wants to do what has never been done before in the affordable housing market, revealing that the latest statistics show that the Lagos State government has been able to build about 13,000 new homes since 1999.
“There is still a huge task ahead of us when the Lateef Jakande report then says the deficit is 16 million. What we are trying to do is to start and deliver about 1,200 units in the next five years, which is within our current funding.
“But with the bond, we will be able to do substantially more than that. For example, we are raising N250 billion, if we divide that by 20, it is going to cost us N20 million each, which is about 12,500 units. So you can see the staggering numbers of what we need to do, and we believe it is going to be profitable. Those who subscribe to the bond will basically enjoy the return on investment,” he noted.
The GMD stated that the company will partner with the federal government to give affordable housing to the public, adding that “our other business is construction. We, as a company, do not do the construction ourselves. What we do is to acquire more land and once we finish that, we will start another 100 in the same area.
“We have all those plans on some of our land. We have a huge land in Opebi, Lagos. We want to build 88 apartments, skyscrapers, and a 12-storey building. It will probably be the tallest building in that axis going forward.
We are doing all the planning together at the moment. These are what we will do next year, and then hopefully the bond will bring in how we are going to fund them. And then if the interest rate comes down, we may look at maybe a Federal Mortgage Bank to give us construction funding.”
Haldane McCall Plc, founded in 2012 and listed on the Nigerian Exchange on November 20, 2024, is a holding company in real estate and hospitality. It operates through two subsidiaries namely Suru Homes Limited and Suru Express Hotels. The company develops luxury properties and manages three-star hotels in Lagos, Nigeria.
