FSD Africa Investments provided debt, equity and a returnable grant to Sofala Capital, a housing finance catalyst based in Cape Town, with holdings in Zambia (Zambian Home Loans, ZHL), South Africa and Tanzania (iBuild Home Loans).
Sofala invests in innovative housing finance companies that offer secured housing finance products. As an active issuer in the debt capital markets, Sofala creates direct links between capital markets and African families and facilitate the flow of affordable housing finance between them.
There is a massive and well-documented, unmet need for affordable housing across SSA, given population growth and urbanization trends. Through its subsidiary companies, Sofala Capital offers building mortgages; it provides funds to individuals engaged in incremental building projects, advancing funds required to complete a project and taking a mortgage over the entire property. Sofala also provides technical services into the projects, working with quantity surveyors to make sure the house that is being built is of high quality.
FSD Africa’s has enabled more than 600 financially excluded South African and Zambian families to build their own homes. In so doing, these families are creating their own long-term, upward economic trajectory
Michael waller, CEO, Sofala Capital