Grit Real Estate to sell entire $989m portfolio, including Sh20.5bn of Kenyan property
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Mauritius-based Grit Real Estate Income Group says it will dispose of all its real estate assets, including Kenyan holdings last valued at $158.2 million (Sh20.5 billion), after its board accepted a conditional binding offer for its development platform.
Debt-distressed property group Grit Real Estate Income Group is set to sell all its real estate assets, including about Sh20.5 billion of Kenyan property, after its board accepted a conditional binding offer for the disposal of its development platform, Business Daily reported. The Kenyan portfolio includes the Buffalo Mall in Naivasha and Rosslyn Grove, the gated estate in Nairobi that houses staff of the US Embassy.
In a trading update, the Mauritius-based multinational said the offer covers the group's interests in GREA and Africa Property Development Managers Limited, together with certain associated assets and liabilities, and involves separating the two businesses from the group. It said the proposal represents a further stage in a process first disclosed in April, but that definitive transaction agreements and the required implementation arrangements remain to be completed, with completion expected to be subject to lender approvals and the release of existing security.
Grit last valued its income-producing real estate assets in Kenya at $158.2 million (Sh20.5 billion) as at June 2025, equal to 16 percent of its total portfolio of $989 million (Sh128.4 billion). The company has previously disclosed total debt of nearly half a billion dollars (Sh64.9 billion). Its lenders include South Africa's Standard Bank Group, Absa Bank Kenya and NCBA Group, and Kenyan banks had nearly doubled their lending to the group to $94.9 million by the end of June 2025 from $48.7 million a year earlier. Grit holds a 54.2 percent stake in GREA, with the balance owned by South Africa's Public Investment Corporation.
Rosslyn Grove was built for Sh5.5 billion and, in 2012, Grit disclosed that the US government had signed an eight-year lease for the property under which it paid rent of $4.724 million in the first year, an annual rental yield of 9.7 percent. The US government took up all 90 units in the gated community, which includes apartments, townhouses, a clubhouse, a gym and a swimming pool. Absa Bank Kenya provided a $35 million loan to finance the development. Grit's other Kenyan investment properties include the Imperial Distribution Centre, a pharmaceutical warehouse, and Eneo Tatu City, an office and business process outsourcing development.
Grit said it is also working to sell properties outside those held under GREA and APDM, marking one of the largest real estate asset sales in Africa. It said its board commissioned an adviser to seek bids for an acquisition of the group's other assets, and that the expression of interest offering the best terms has secured the support of its senior secured creditors, which have committed, subject to conditions, to continue providing working capital so the transaction can close.
"Between the current ordinary course disposals the company was already undertaking, the development platform transaction and the property portfolio transaction, the expectation is that the company will be disposing of all its real estate assets," Grit said. It added that it will engage with regulators and shareholders on the future of its status as a publicly listed company. Its shares were suspended from trading on the London and Mauritius stock exchanges in May, and most of its loans are denominated in US dollars, with benchmark rates having risen sharply since the start of 2022.