Capital Markets

PTA Bank plans 19-storey Kilimani head office

PTA bank

Trade and Development Bank President and CEO Admassu Tadesse. FILE

Trade and Development Bank (TDB), formerly known as the Eastern and Southern African Trade and Development Bank (PTA Bank), plans to build a 19-floor office block in Nairobi’s Kilimani area.

TDB joins a growing list of both local and multinational companies investing heavily in Kilimani, Upper Hill and Westlands to house headquarters and earn rental income.

“The project will consist of a nineteen tower floors office block with three basement levels for parking. Upon completion, the development will be PTA Bank’s regional office,” said an environmental impact assessment notice.

The notice said the building is to be built at Kilimani on Lenana Road and will comprise conferencing facilities, office space, coffee shop and restaurant, a plaza, retail units and sky gardens.

The regional multilateral development finance institution, which has been in operation for just over three decades, recently changed its official brand name as it seeks to increase financing.

It announced this December that it will continue to increase financing for priority sectors such as infrastructure, manufacturing, industry and agribusiness across the 20 member states it operates in, over the next five years.

Upper Nairobi has emerged as a key commercial district attracting developers in droves owing to growing demand for office blocks from corporates, NGOs and State agencies that have been moving away from Nairobi’s CBD.

Britam, UAP, Equity Bank, CBA, KCB Bank, Coca ­Cola and UAP are some of the firms that have offices in the area or are constructing skyscrapers for letting out.

PTA Bank, whose president and chief executive officer is Admassu Tadesse, has financed numerous agribusiness projects throughout eastern and southern Africa, notably Malawi and Sudan and provided important asset finance facilities to the air-transport sector in the region, with Rwanda Air, Kenya Airways and Ethiopian Airlines benefitting.

The Bank has also funded renewable energy projects like the Turkana Wind Power in Kenya, Hydromax Minihydro in Uganda and industrial projects such as cement and steel plants in DR Congo, Djibouti, Zambia, Rwanda, Ethiopia and Zimbabwe.

Established in 1985, TDB is a multilateral treaty-based financial institution. It boasts of shareholders from 20 member countries in the tripartite region (COMESA, EAC and SADC).