Luxury homes in Runda. The price of the estate’s luxury homes increased by 11.1 per cent in 2014, according to a Knight Frank report. PHOTO | FILE | NATION MEDIA GROUP
Wednesday, March 18 2015
IN SUMMARY
- The Wealth Report 2015 identifies India as the main source of inbound property investments into Kenya by ultra-high net worth individuals.
- Investment by rich Kenyans in local real estate has also been rising since 2010, while money going into property abroad has been falling.
Wealthy investors from India are the main source of the money pouring into Kenya’s commercial real estate sector, a new Knight Frank survey has found.
Chinese investors are also a significant factor across Africa.
The Wealth Report Global Capital Markets Survey 2015, to be released in Nairobi Thursday, identifies India as the main source of inbound investments into property portfolios by ultra-high net worth individuals.
These are people with a net worth of $30 million (Sh2.7 billion) and above.
Most, the report says, put their money in residential development projects.
“One of the clearest trends to emerge is the increasingly global nature of private investments,” writes Knight Frank Head of Global Wealth Investments Deborah Watt. “Wealthy private individuals have begun increasing the amount invested overseas. Some are diversifying their portfolios as they gain more experience with property investing, while others may be from a particular diaspora investing back into their homelands… for example ex-pat Kenyans.”
The interest shown by India’s richest in Kenyan property is also shared by a growing number of Kenya’s richest individuals, the same survey found.
Over the last five years, investment by rich Kenyans in local real estate has been rising, while Kenyan money going into property abroad has been falling.
The report puts their commercial property portfolio allocations at 70 per cent local and rising, with retail sector property in the United Kingdom being the preferred investment for the rest.
According to the survey, carried out for Knight Frank by Australian research firm WealthInsights, Kenya has 115 super-wealthy individuals, 32 of whom are centa-millionaires (have more than $100 million or Sh9.1 billion).
The report identifies one unnamed Kenyan as a dollar billionaire. Controversy has raged around the question of whether there are any Kenyans with a net worth of more than a billion dollars, with the “richest Kenyan” Bhimji Depar Shah (Bidco CEO Vimal Shah’s father) listed with a net worth of $70million.
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