Esteemed clients, partners, colleagues and friends, good evening.
Thank you very much for making time to attend our “Sharp is the new smart” cocktail event, which takes place on the eve of our brand launch campaign, that kicks off tomorrow.
I remember reading an end-of-year review article in the Business Daily late last year, headlined; “The new kid on the block Cytonn Investments is taking the real estate sector by storm.” Real estate is an old trade that is as old as the beginning of time; the leadership team has been working for more than a decade on behalf of investors. So what, really, is new? Two things: First, we have knit our decades of experience into a new brand, Cytonn, which is focused on delivering the best returns to investors in the most professional way and (ii) we bring a professional approach to the real estate, a sector that has largely not been driven by institutional players.
The brand has achieved a lot within a short period of time:
- Building a deal pipeline of over Kshs. 55 billion
- Secured the partnership of Taaleri of Finland as the principal investment partner; Taaleri has approximately USD. 5 billion of assets under management
- We have over 100 committed team members, across 3 offices, including one in the US
- We run the most innovative business training program in this country – the Cytonn Young Leaders Program, preparing young graduates for business leadership.
We would not have achieved this without the support, commitment and trust of our clients and partners, such as you. So, on behalf of the Board of Directors, I would like to take this opportunity to sincerely thank you for your immense contribution to our robust growth.
We began the year by releasing a market outlook report to inform investors about the best opportunities for investment in 2016. We now want to ensure that we communicate better about who we really are and what we do, hence the brand campaign that we are here to launch. Clarity about “Who is Cytonn?” and “What does Cytonn do?” will significantly increase our opportunities to be more engaged in pursuing attractive opportunities for our clients. There is no better way to mark this next step than together with you. You believed in us, you have walked with us and as we launch the brand, we renew our energy and commitment in serving you better and delivering to promise.
The brand campaign is targeted to further entrench our position as leaders in investments and the real estate sector in the region. Real estate continues to be one of the key growth sectors in the economy, with 14% sector growth, compared to overall economic growth of 5.5%.
Earlier today, in this same room, we released the Nairobi Commercial real estate report, with the main focus on demand and supply to enable us strategically search for the most lucrative market where we can get good returns.
Tomorrow, we will be rolling out this campaign on various media channels, which include TV, newspapers, radio and digital media. You are part of this success story, and the reason we felt it was important to launch the brand first to you then to the public. The campaign is both thematic and product focused and is called ‘Sharp is the new smart’”. From the market research and feedback received from you, we felt that you wanted us to do things the sharp way, and be ahead of the pack. We have done that, not only through campaign but also through our services and highly innovative products.
To conclude, I would like to thank the team that worked tirelessly to put this exceptional campaign together; I encourage each one of us to look into areas where we can upscale ourselves from thinking and acting SMART and look for areas where we can differentiate ourselves by being SHARP.
God bless you,
Thank you very much.
Prof. Daniel Mugendi Njiru
Chairman Of The Board Of Directors Of Cytonn Investments Management Limited At The Launch Of The Cytonn Brand Campaign
