Centum real estate arm to raise Ksh.17 billion in new shares issue

The shares will be issued via a new agreement with Luxembourg based private investment group, GEM Global Yield LLC SCS.

The investor is expected to provide Centum Real Estate with a share subscription facility of up to Ksh.17 billion for a 36-month term following a public listing of the shares.

“The share subscription facility will allow Centum Real Estate to draw down funds by issuing shares of common stock to GEM. Centum Real Estate will control the timing and the maximum size of such drawdowns and has no minimum drawdown obligation,” Centum Real Estate said in a statement on Tuesday.

GEM is expected to assure the partial uptake of the shares subscription in what is seen as a move by Centum to firm up its new capital raising strategy.

“The commitment by GEM is a major vote of confidence in Centum Real Estate and its business model and this investment will go a great way in significantly scaling up the business of Centum Real Estate,” noted Centum Plc Managing Director Dr. James Mworia.

“The commitment by GEM provides an independent market validation of the attractiveness of the Centum Real Estate business model, demonstrates depth of investor interest and helps us in strengthening market confidence in the business of Centum Real Estate. We are quite pleased with this development and look forward to attracting even more investors into Centum Real Estate”.

Centum Real Estate is currently developing over 1,400 homes and has another 3,000 units in the pipeline.

GEM meanwhile has an asset base of $3.4 billion (Ksh.384.9 billion) and has operations in Paris, New York and the Bahamas from which it manages a variety of investment vehicles.