It was new impetus and boost for student housing in Nigeria recently as frontline developer in this space, Student Accommod8, raised fund from Nigeria Infrastructure Debt Fund (NIDF) managed by Chapel Hill Denham for the purposes of expansion.
Student Accommod8 is the owner and manager of high-quality and Purpose-Built Student Accommodation (PBSA).
The debt financing is to be used for expansion of the developer’s two existing PBSAs, serving Pan Atlantic University and Olabisi Onabanjo University, which have been designed, built and managed to the highest standards, providing value added services including minimarts, cafeterias, laundry services and many more to not only the residents but also to the wider student community in the respective universities.
In the last decade, there has been a 12 percent annual average growth of student enrolment in Nigerian tertiary institutions while the provision of purpose-built student accommodation is less than 30 percent of the demand.
With the ever-growing demand for student housing in Nigeria, Student Accommod8 plans to develop and/or acquire 15,000 bed-spaces in the next 3-5 years.
NIDF is Africa’s and Nigeria’s first listed infrastructure debt fund. The fund is structured to enable domestic long-term savings such as pension and retirement assets to be safely channeled into productive infrastructure assets in the country.
While supporting commercially attractive projects, NIDF enables its investors to benefit from the predictable returns available from long dated infrastructure debt investments.
“We are very excited to have a partner in the caliber of NIDF come on board and we look forward to a long and mutually beneficial relationship which will impact the lives of Nigerian students positively.
“Our goal is simply to continuously deliver the best experience for students across the country. Nigeria’s students are the future and we intend to serve them the best way possible,” said Abayomi Onasanya, Founder/CEO of Student Accommod8.
On his part, Anshul Rai, CEO, Nigeria Infrastructure Deft Fund, noted that financing of social infrastructure, particularly in education and healthcare, was central to NIDF’s investment objective as well as their broader mission to drive positive development outcomes.
Onasanya pointed out that Student Accommod8 was operating in a sector with substantial unmet demand and its PBSAs would contribute to meaningful improvement in student welfare.
Its hostels are strategically placed close to universities or within the universities’ campuses and each hostel comes equipped with all the necessary facilities every student needs to feel at home away from home.
CHUKA UROKO
