People and wider economy
The provision of 7,000 beds of student accommodation to empower the next generation skilled workforce with access to quality housing.
| Investee Company | Acorn Holdings |
| Sector | Social infrastructure |
| Country | Kenya |
| Total Project Cost | KES 5.7bn |
| PIDG Commitment |
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| Dates of PIDG involvement |
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While Kenya’s university enrolment grew substantially from 27,000 students in 1990 to circa 550,000 students in 2019, there were less than 40,000 university beds available at the time. The provision of affordable student housing and climate-conscious infrastructure development in Nairobi, with the added socio-economic benefit of job creation, particularly for women-owned enterprises was missing.
PIDG invested in Acorn, which is leading the way in driving forward a greener, more inclusive vision of growth in Kenya. Acorn’s project contributed to addressing the housing deficit by creating clean, safe and affordable purpose-built accommodation for 7,000 students in Nairobi, where around half of the university population is based. In October 2019, our guarantee solution, GuarantCo provided investors with a partial credit guarantee for an initial KES 4.3 billion green bond to finance this project. The Emerging Africa & Asia Infrastructure Fund was the largest single investor for this bond, with a participation of over KES 1.2 billion.
PIDG provided technical assistance in the form of a grant to contribute towards the costs of the first bond issuance, creating a significant enabling effect. In February 2021, InfraCo invested KES 1 billion to anchor the launch of Acorn’s Real Estate Investment Trusts.
Then in September 2021, GuarantCo provided Acorn with a second guarantee to support the KES 1.4 billion upsizing of the Medium-Term Note programme to finance the construction of two additional sites.
The provision of 7,000 beds of student accommodation to empower the next generation skilled workforce with access to quality housing.
The 2019 bond was a landmark transaction the first green bond and project bond to be issued in Kenya.
The second bond issuance was oversubscribed by 46 per cent, demonstrating the market interest and confidence Acorn achieved within two years.
The InfraCo investment provided important growth equity to the business and catalysed further investment from local pension funds.
The construction of the environmentally-friendly student accommodation meets international green building standards for water, energy and construction materials, ensuring lower operation costs and a low-carbon impact over the long-term.
The project also, importantly, supports gender equality aspirations with half of the students that will call it home to be women. Gender considerations were also factored into the community living spaces.
