Nigeria’s newly launched Mortgage Refinance Company (NMRC) has already attracted up to N8.75 billion equity financing as
well as a $300 million in debt.
Analysts said on Monday that this record depicts investor confidence and interest in the initiative that targets to ultimately provide affordable homes to the citizens.
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the coordinating minister for the economy and minister of finance, said the company’s initial equity raising exercise was oversubscribed from the original N5 billion target to N6.75 billion deposit for equity from 19 institutional investors
for the company’s take off.
There is also an outstanding firm equity commitment from other institutional investors to subscribe up to N2 billion in additional capital, she said.
The above capital is exclusive of the $300 million World Bank financing commitment on very concessionary terms also for the company.
Out of this sum, $25 million is earmarked for the establishment of a Mortgage Guarantee Facility for lower income borrowers, while another $25 million is to support the development and piloting of Housing Finance Microfinance Products.
The credit was negotiated by the Federal Government to kick-start the liquidity facility, to be disbursed to NMRC as Tier 2 Capital,
based on performance indicators.
In a speech delivered at the inaugural Housing Stakeholders’ Implementation Summit, the minister further announced that the
NMRC has also met tough World Bank effectiveness conditions enabling it to begin drawdown of the $250 million out of the $300
million World Bank International Development Association (IDA) credit.
This was even as the coordinating minister said several deaths recorded during the recent immigration recruitment exercise have
even reinvigorated government’s push at efforts for more jobs in the economy.
NMRC, she said, is one of those efforts and is to commence refinancing operations by the end of the second quarter this year.
“This housing finance and housing development implementation summit gives us the opportunity to stand true to the memories
of those who died seeking immigration jobs…. So we are here today not to talk but to take action”, the minister told participants.
She further stressed that the NMRC is poised to address the key barrier of finance to developing accessible and affordable housing
in Nigeria by bridging the cost of funds for residential mortgages.
She also explained that it is a mortgage refinancing liquidity facility designed to enhance the availability and affordability of housing for Nigerians, through growing liquidity and increasing ten or in the mortgage market.
Meanwhile, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), a private sector lending arm of the World Bank Group, has announced plans to invest some $1.5 billion in three sectors of the Nigerian economy.
The commitments which would come at commercial rates would focus on the housing, power and transport sectors, although no
specifics are yet available as to what each would get.
Jim-yong Cai, the vice president, IFC, disclosed the planned investments at a media briefing shortly after a meeting on Monday with the Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.
The meeting was also attended by the World Bank country director, Marie Francoise Marie-Nelly, and the IFC country manager for Nigeria, Solomon Adegbie- Quaynor.
Cai said the IFC is currently expanding the scope and depth of its activities in Nigeria, adding that a robust approach would be adopted to achieve this.
ONYINYE NWACHUKWU, Abuja
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