seizing fibre opportunity
Balwin finds annuity income from fibre
Property company enters the network infrastructure market, giving it a great source of annuity income from its estates
JSE-listed real estate developer Balwin Properties has set up a new telecoms arm to take on network infrastructure providers at their own game. Balwin Properties, which operates a build-to-sell model, plans to finish building 36,000 sectional-title apartments in 24 locations in the next few years. But its plans put it in direct competition with companies such as Vumatel, Telkom’s Openserve, Vodacom, or Liquid Telecoms’ Neotel. To protect the company from an economic downturn or a cooling property market, CEO Steve Brookes made the decision earlier this year to create an annuity income business that generates consistent revenue streams from the company’s estates. The main profit-driver of the division will be Balwin Fibre, which was granted a licence from the Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa) several months ago that allows it to deploy and operate physical networks in its estates. That means Balwin will have a captive market for its fibre offering. It will run open-a...
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