Ikeja City Mall

Retail in West Africa has undergone a transformation as shoppers increasingly seek to spend their leisure time in safe, clean, well-designed environments that bring household names and leisure activities together under one roof. Ikeja City Mall exemplifies this trend and opened for business in December 2011 welcoming 45,000 visitors on its first day of trading.

Built to service the Lagos mainland, the Ikeja City Mall hopes to return this suburb to its former standing as the traditional retail hub of the city. Key tenants in the 28,500 square metre centre include Shoprite and Mr Price, each of which has reported strong trading figures since the mall’s opening.

Actis’ Responsible Investment team worked with Ikeja’s architects to make sure green building practices that conserve energy and minimise the development’s environmental impact lie at the heart of this project. For example, the centre is designed to supply cold water only; geysers provide the hot water, limiting overall energy consumption.

The Ikeja City Mall development follows Actis’ successful investment in Nigeria’s first modern-style shopping mall, The Palms in Lekki; as well as Junction in Nairobi, Accra Mall in Ghana, and Rivière du Rampert in Mauritius.

Actis managed the development process of the mall from concept to completion: investing the initial equity, raising development finance, managing the construction, securing the tenants operating the mall and bringing it to market at the right time. The mall opened its doors in December 2011 fully let, and today attracts up to 800,000 shoppers per month.

Actis exited Ikeja City Mall in November 2015.