Equity investor targets $150,000 household spend in Abuja with Jabi Mall

With a rapidly growing population of 2.2 million, Abuja, Nigeria’s federal capital city, has become a very strong market comprising A and B level consumers, which underpins the residents’ potential buying power.

Abuja is said to have the highest per capita income in the whole of Nigeria and, according to a recent study on the city’s consumer spend, there are over 68,000 households with annual expenditure of over $150,000 per household.

Actis Nigeria, a leading international private equity investment firm in sub-Saharan Africa with strong interest in real estate, says the statistics on Abuja are not only compelling but also emboldening to them as investors, explaining that the Jabi Mall, which it is building right in front of the Jabi Lake in the heart of the federal capital, is targeted at the city’s high household spending power.

“If you compare Abuja with Accra where we have Accra Mall, Accra has 2.5 million people. We built a 27,000-hectare retail centre in Accra which has been very successful, enjoying about 550,000 visitors per month. Abuja has about 2.2 million people but has the highest per capita income in all of Nigeria. So, if an Actis Mall is succeeding in Accra, you can imagine our confidence in how successful an Abuja mall will be,” Chu’di Ejekam, Actis director, Real Estate, told our correspondent in an interview.

“We have the benefit of being able to compare those two markets. In Abuja, there are over 68,000 households with annual expenditure of over $150,000 per household which is quite fantastic. For a retailer and investor, this statistics is quite compelling and emboldening. We know all these because we conduct our research which emboldens us in our investments.”

The mall, according to him, is going to be a large destination centre that will be sitting on 31,000 square metres of gross buildable area and 26,000 square metres of lettable area, adding that it would be the largest in Nigeria because it is going to be larger than The Palms and Ikeja City Mall.

Ejekam disclosed that there was a new wave of interest in the Nigerian retail market and that a good number of international retailers were warming up to come into the growing Nigerian market.

In their response to this, he said, “We have actually convened a meeting of potential joint venture partners and franchisee partners in Nigeria and Ghana; as part of what we do, we want to help to broaden the market. Even though we are investors, we hope we will all benefit from it.”