Real Estate Investor Magazine September 2025 September 2025 Edition | Page 37

BROLL AFRICA
BROLL AFRICA

Africa’ s Global Relevance( and what people get wrong)

The old narrative that Africa is an underwriting black box, hasn’ t kept up. Two decades of data now inform returns in hospitality, residential, retail, and logistics across multiple corridors.
“ The bigger challenge isn’ t the asset, often it’ s currency and capital mobility,” Horne says. Price those risks properly, and the rest becomes execution: anchors that trade, facilities that run, maintenance that prevents. New demand drivers are not theoretical. Asian OEMs and manufacturers are reshaping logistics and light-industrial footprints. Infrastructure corridors are catalysing hotel and residential nodes. And diaspora buyers are a structural bid in housing.

“ We’ re seeing more sophisticated regional investors,” Horne notes.“ Meritocratic bidding is real. If you can show outputs, you get the mandate.”

Regional Picture: A Portfolio, not a monolith

Ask Horne where the energy is, and his map starts in Uganda, where oil-and-gas activity is lifting hospitality and FM demand and opening doors into Rwanda and the DRC.
Ghana is a residential story:“ The diaspora wants to bring money home,” he says. In Nigeria, data centres and hospitality are advancing, though size and timing vary by corridor. East Africa’ s retail is strongest where Carrefour anchors the ecosystem; logistics modernisation is underway but uneven. For offices, prime will hold; second-tier stock is still rationalising footprints.
The lesson: allocate by readiness and anchor depth, not headlines. Find corridors where the operating model works now, not in theory.

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