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Global Property Agency Knight Frank Expands In East Africa As Profits Hit Record High

Global Property Agency Knight Frank Expands In East Africa As Profits Hit Record High

Knight Frank, world’s largest property agency and consultancy firm, said a growing retail market in East Africa has increased the demand for real estate management services in the region and it will expand its office to Rwanda this year.

The firm, which already operates in 24 African countries, has offices in Kenya and Uganda.

“Africa continues to offer enormous opportunity. We already have more than 700 people in 24 offices across the continent,” Knight Frank said in a statement announcing its record $247 million full-year profit for the 12 months to March 2015.

“2015 has seen particularly strong results in the retail markets in Kenya and Uganda and we are set to expand further in locations where client needs are greatest – as part of this approach we have recently opened a new office in Kigali, Rwanda.”

East Africa has seen a proliferation of malls in the last few years as a growing middle class in the region acquire a keener taste for foreign products and services. The trend is being felt from Nairobi to Dar es salaam, Kampala to Kigali, and it is radically altering the shopping habits of the region’s richer consumers.

According to consultancy firm McKinsey, Africa’s consumer industry is likely to grow by more than $400 billion by 2020.

International retailers and brand have noticed this growing appetite fueled by a budding middle class nations on the continent and are flocking in to set up shop in new shopping.

Such investors include British property investment company, St Paul’s Property Trust, that is currently seeking to raise $76 million at the Nairobi Stock Exchange.

“The formal sector is growing slowly and once everybody comes in and brings excitement in different ways and different means it will increase the formal capacity, which is good for everybody. Good for employment, good for taxation, good for government… good for everybody,” Nakumatt Holding’s managing director Atul Shah told CCTV Africa.