Botswana Insurance Fund Management (Bifm), the largest fund management company in the country, is positioning itself to complete its modern office park in Gaborone as the company is navigating ways of increasing shareholders’ value through the property ladder across the African region.
Outule Bale, Property Manager at KhumoÔÇöa subsidiary of BifmÔÇötold reporters that they “have delivered on phase two “ of Bifm’s office Park and plans are afoot to start on Phase Three.
“We are looking at starting (Phase Three) developments soon and that will be within Bifm plot,” he said.
Bifm acquired a huge plot near the fairgrounds ÔÇô commonly known as the Financial Services Centre ÔÇô at the close of the last century with a view of transforming the Gaborone office space landscape.
The move has lead to what is called the Grade A office spaceÔÇöthe design replete with underground parking space, restaurants, gyms in an attempt to accommodate the modern lifestyle of the working class.
The Bifm structures have been designed in such way that they have more parking space than the minimum requirement imposed by the city council. Further, as part of the move, Bifm has lobbied government and the city council to have Tlokweng border post road to Gaborone to be developed into a double carriage with traffic lights at the turn off into the Fairground junction. And another, double carriage from the Polytechnic Circle towards the Fairgrounds Mall and another road that will link Fairgrounds with Tlokweng without necessarily passing through Village. All the proposals have been taken on board.
The fund management company, with assets over P 14 billion, has also teamed up with Stocker-FleetWood Bird to develop office blocks that would be sold to clients within the Bifm plot.
Further, BifmÔÇöthrough Khumo – is the second largest investor in Turnstar, the owners of Game City Mall in Gaborone. The mall is currently being expanded owning to increased demand for retail space in the city.
This is part of the company’s regional plan of being a regional property magnate as it has put up some shopping malls and office spaces in Zambia through its subsidiary African Life.
The company is also looking into Namibia where it is eyeing to partner with other fund management companies to develop some properties.
Bifm has also been involved in some trail-blazing public private partnership programmes in the country that have successfully gone well.
