Afhco Group

The Afhco Group, founded in 1996, is a leading investor, developer, and manager of affordable housing and commercial property in the Johannesburg inner-city.

Afhco currently owns 62 buildings in the Johannesburg inner city and 10 outside the city, representing approximately 5500 rental apartments and about 300 000m² of retail, commercial and light industrial space. There are currently a further 1000 residential units under development for 2011. This will bring the total residential rental portfolio to about 6500 units with a total portfolio value of approximately R1.6 billion.

: Renney Plit: COO, Wayne Plit: CEO

Afhco is the leader in driving the creation of improvement districts within the inner-city, addressing both social and schooling issues as well as lobbying Council to assist with public space upgrades.

Afhco’s key strategy in growing its portfolio value has been the upliftment of precincts and communities around its buildings, in order to make previous no-go areas into sought-after residential nodes. A spin off of this strategy has been a general rehabilitation of the Johannesburg inner-city with both Council and growing competition playing a key role.

The Group has 3 divisions:

Afhco Holdings

Afhco Holdings (Pty) Ltd, created in 1996, is currently recognized as the leading provider of affordable rental accommodation in the Johannesburg CBD and surrounds. It also boasts an extensive commercial, retail and light industrial portfolio.

By converting mainly derelict buildings into modern and well designed rental apartments, Afhco offers a quality lifestyle at an affordable price to the emerging middle class, earning R3500 to R10 000 per month. Its residential units boast features such as kitchens (with built-in cookers), attractive finishes, ful bathrooms, DSTV access, telephones, internet access, finger print access and 24hr security.

Afhco Property Management

Afhco Property Management (Pty) Ltd, established in 1998, is registeered with the Estate Agency Affairs Board, and is responsible for the management of all of Afhco’s properties including, residential, commercial, retail and light industrial. The Company has also recently started managing properties on behalf of third parties and is looking to grow their client base even further.

At present Afhco Property Management employs approximately 110 people, with expected growth over the next 3 years as the portfolio size increases.

Afhco Property Management has currently achieved a level of less than 1% vacancy on residential units, together with a bad debt ratio of below 0.5%. Property Management ensures affordable, safe and well maintained accommodation in an environment where tenants can feel proud of their homes. This is achieved through maintaining our relationships and communication with the tenant base, enforcing building rules, preventing overcrowding and noise pollution and through effective building maintenance.

Afhco Construction Management

Afhco Construction Management is an in-house construction company responsible for Afhco’s building and research applications. Through an innovative approach, Construction Management creates cost effective but high quality residential solutions. Afhco Construction Management was created due to the shortage of specialists in the field as a result of developmental projects such as the Gautrain and The 2010 Fifa World Cup, as well as a need to create cost effective solutions for grand scale building operations. The Company currently employs approximately 20 employees and around 250 people are indirectly employed through contractors on site.

Afhco Construction Management have produced in excess of 3500 apartments in the Johannesburg CBD in the past five years, at a cost of approximately R150 million. The Company is in the process of rolling out a further 700 new apartments, expected to be completed by mid-2012. In addition, there are also two commercial shopping centres under development by the company, at a cost of around R50 million.