Balwin was established in 1996 and is one of the largest sectional title residential property developer in South Africa focused on development and sale of sectional title apartments. The company has been at the forefront of efforts to close the burgeoning gap of low-to-middle-class housing across different provinces of South Africa. In addition to its residential Build-to-Sell business, Balwin has also established several complimentary businesses that leverages its developments, including fibre installation, rental of apartment units and solar power generation. Since its inception it has successfully completed and sold over 50,000 apartment units and currently develops approximately 2,000 to 3,000 units each year. Balwin also has the largest number of IFC EDGE certifications by any property developer globally with over 22,810 units registered for EDGE certification and with 14,328 of these already EDGE Advanced.

The Company is listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange and the largest shareholders are held by its founder and CEO Stephen Brookes (33.07%), and its Managing Director, Rodney Gray (9.29%). Other shareholders include Reggie Kukama, Non-Executive Director (9.09%); GRE Africa Ltd (7.58%); Nedbank Group (5.49%); Ulrich Gschnaidtner, Chief Projects Officer (1.05%) and Jonathan Bigham, CFO (0.02%). The rest of the shareholding is held publicly.                                              

 The proposed project involves a 8-year loan of up to ZAR1 billion (~US$52 million) from IFC. It will support the phased development of Mooikloof City by funding Balwin’s original land acquisition, bulk infrastructure investments and the development of up to 4,500 apartments.                                                   

The Mooikloof City project is located east of Tshwane (Pretoria) in Gauteng, South Africa.                                                   

 Not applicable.                                                

 This is a Category B project according to IFC’s 2012 Policy on Environmental and Social Sustainability as the project involves activities with potential limited adverse environmental or social risks and/or impacts that are a few in number, generally site-specific, largely reversible, and readily addressed through mitigation measures. Key E&S issues are: (a) company’s E&S management systems and organizational capacity; (b) adequacy of labor and working conditions, including construction phase; (c) identification and management of E&S risks and impacts, including occupational health and safety (OHS); (d) community security, health and safety (e.g., due to dust, noise and traffic, security management) and (e) stakeholder engagement and external grievance mechanism.