ARM Properties becomes Mixta Nigeria, poised to break home affordability jinx

Determined to increase its foothold in the African real estate market, and also in line with its vision to build a dominant real estate company aligned with its parent company’s (ARM’s) philosophy of excellence, professionalism and integrity, ARM Properties has rebranded and become Mixta Nigeria.

The rebranding which was approved by the company’s shareholders, comes as a consequence of the parent company’s acquisition of Mixta Africa—a reputable real estate investment and development company based in Spain with subsidiaries in African countries including Tunisia, Morocco, Senegal, Cote D’voire  and now Nigeria.

ARM Properties which started operations in 2006 as a real estate investment fund management company—ARM Real Estate Investment Plc—has over the years grown to become one of the Nigerian property market leaders with, arguably, iconic projects to its credit including the Oluwole Urban Market in Lagos, Adiva Plainfield, FourPoints by Sheraton, Lakowe Lakes and Resorts, etc.

At a highly formal and corporate event for the launching of Mixta Africa into Nigeria real estate market and also the unveiling and rebranding of ARM Properties as Mixta Nigeria in Lagos recently, Kola Ashiru Balogun, the company’s managing director, explained that “the acquisition is to enable ARM increase its foothold across Africa and deliver more houses across the continent”.

“Mixta Africa has over the years been able to deliver over 6,000 housing units and will be bringing that expertise into Nigeria to be able to deliver more homes to the Nigerian market; another reason for this move is also to be able to attract more foreign funding”, Ashiru informed.

From the name, it can easily be deduced that Mixta Africa is an Africa-focused real estate development company and, according Deji Alli, Mixta Africa’s chairman and CEO,  the company’s distinguishing features, looking at its operations in different African countries, is its speciallisation across the income groups, disclosing that at the core of their business were affordable homes.

“In countries like Senegal and Morocco, we have been able to successfully deliver homes to end buyers at an equivalent of N5 million. We will bring down cost of project management within Nigerian environment so as to be able to bring down the delivery cost of homes to end users”, Alli assured, adding that the  key interest for them was affordable homes which, he hoped, would constitute about 60 percent of their business, portfolio and investment in various countries where they operate.

He disclosed that they saw significant opportunities in the hospitality sector such as hotels and retail malls, pointing out that, in Nigeria, for instance, hotel development was one of their projects. “And when we say retail malls, we are not just looking at the western-styled retail malls, but the kind of thing we did in Oluwole Market where took traders from the informal market into a more organised setting”.

In the delivery of affordable housing, Alli recalled that “historically, most of the homes we have done in Nigeria have been within the upper N25 million, but with this combination we have now, we see an incredible opportunity to come down the ladder to sub-N10 million homes and to do that means we have to go to areas where the price of land is not exorbitant and where there is a critical max of buyers”.

Outskirt of Lagos, he noted, was a key area for them, adding that Abuja was another important area just as they were also looking at Port Harcourt as the few areas they were going to concentrate on in Nigeria.

To achieve this dream in Nigeria where developers contend with issues of high interest rate and unfriendly business environment, Alli said there was “need for a government with an aspiration to deliver homes to low income earners, back that aspiration up with policy and also ensure that people can borrow long term at affordable rate to acquire their homes”.