Companies
CIC expands options for Sh4bn Kiambu land sale
Friday April 14 2023
CIC general insurance managing director Fred Ruoro. PHOTO | DIANA NGILA | NMG
CIC Group has expanded options for the sale of Kiambu land valued at about Sh4.05 billion as it seeks to attract more buyers.
The insurer says the land, which makes up about 42 percent of its Sh9.67 billion asset portfolio, could now be subdivided past a quarter-acre piece it had previously settled on as the minimum size.
CIC now says the board will be at discretion to subdivide the 200-acre land further as it seeks to attract more buyers. Currently, a quarter-acre plot is priced from Sh7.85 million.
“The board determined that it would unlock better value of the property either by selling the 50 acres blocks or further subdividing the 50 acres blocks into such smaller plots as the board would determine from time to time,” said the firm in a circular to shareholders.
“This is on the backdrop of increased demand for customised, accessible and mixed-use residential property.”
The insurer wants to use part of the proceeds from the sale of the land to settle a Sh4.57 billion loan owed to its significant shareholder, Co-operative Bank of Kenya. The facility helped CIC to settle its Sh5 billion corporate bond in October 2019.
The insurer had initially sought to sell the entire 200 acres to one buyer before the board in mid-October 2021 opted to subdivide the land into four blocks of about 50 acres each with the intent of selling each at a time.
The board in June last year approved the sub-division of one of the 50-acre pieces of land into smaller plots of a quarter of an acre, before the latest move.
The subdivided plots will be sold under Ushirika Gardens, a flagship real estate project of the company, in partnership with Co-op Bank.
