By Kingsley Adegboye
To promote global real estate as well as diversify the nation’s economy particularly as the country exits economic recession, International Real Estate Partners, IREP, a reputable global real estate service firm, has launched into Nigeria’s property market to offer end-to-end real estate solutions to corporate tenants across the country.
IREP Nigeria believes it will leverage on its strategic alliance with IREP Holdings worldwide to demystify the regular challenges that characterise the commercial segment of property market by offering bespoke real estate solutions that cut across transactional management, project management and trans-border facilities management to prospective tenants.
Speaking at the official launch of IREP Nigeria at the weekend in Lagos, its Chief Executive Officer, Mrs. Erejuwa Gbadebo, said: “Our mission in Nigeria’s real property market is quite simple but strategic,” adding that the mission is to mirror global standards to deliver value-driven real estate solutions that significantly impact the bottom line of every business that interfaces with IREP.”
According to Mrs. Gbadebo who disclosed that this is the perfect time to go into any business partnership after the recession, the idea behind the partnership is to promote global real estate, while it is to further diversify the nation’s economy, as real estate is a big sector in Nigeria’s economy, stressing: “We want to add value to the real estate sector of the nation’s economy.”
Erejuwa explained that with the property market set to gain momentum in the near future, the need to offer savvy investors, asset owners and corporate tenants bespoke services that speak to the needs of the local environment but equally align with global best standards, has become even more imperative.
In his remark, Mr. Kenny McCrae, Managing Director, IREP Holdings, Dubai, said IREP Nigeria has been structured to execute its operations, transact its businesses and deliver its unique service offering with tremendous support from the parent company.
“Given our rich background and interaction in the global space, and having been closely associated with the Nigerian real estate sector for over a decade, we clearly understand the opportunities and challenges associated with the West African real estate market especially Nigeria. However, we are not deterred by the limitations, rather we believe our best-in-class service, which has soared our client portfolio in recent times, will distinguish us from our contemporaries in the marketplace.
“We trust that the experience we have gained from working in more challenging territories like Libya and Iran will be crucial in our positioning as the choice international real estate solutions provider that meets the needs of corporate tenants from an international perspective”, McCrae noted.
Speaking on the need for international real estate service providers such IREP to participate fully in the commercial segment of the property market in Nigeria, Femi Akintunde, an engineer, and Group Managing Director, Alpha Mead Group and Director IREP, explained that Nigeria has become a critical component of the global real estate market owing to the government’s commitment to attract Foreign Direct Investment FDI, into the country.
“While the government continues to make frantic effort to lure FDIs into the country, the onus is on us as professionals to live up to the expectation of these foreign firms from a real estate perspective,” Akintude said.
According to him, there are an appreciable number of global transactions in the real estate market worldwide but it’s quite disturbing that Sub Saharan African is often seen as the black box in the scheme of things, as the players in the country’s real estate scene have been slow to position the quality of their service to reflect global best practices.
“This limitation informed our decision to partner with IREP which has the right pedigree, platform, network, focus to deliver premium Real Estate support services to clients across all sectors of the economy”, Akintunde explained.
To him, this partnership is a strategic one for the Alpha Mead Group, because it collaborates the Group’s position to be a business entity that specializes in providing a quality, safe, secured and comfortable living and operating environment in terms of residential, office space, retail malls and others.
“For us, we consider this as our contribution to ease operational bottlenecks for international clients and create an enabling environment for businesses to thrive from a real estate perspective”, he stressed.
He however, called on the government to further improve the means of doing business in the country by quickening business registration process, and easing the statutory, legislative and legal frameworks to business operations in the country, noting that this will open even more opportunities for local and international stakeholders in the real estate space.
