Leon Ndubai is the CEO of Indo-Africa Finance, a Nairobi-based micro finance institution that provides middle and lower income Kenyans with simple and affordable access to asset financing. The company also runs a portfolio of hotels including the Golden Beach Resort, a 20-room luxury hotel on the Kenyan coast, and Sandalwood Hotel Kitengela, 30km outside Nairobi. The firm is currently constructing a new property, Sandalwood Elementaita Lodge, at a cost of KSh 500m (US$5.8m).
His chain of hotels and a micro- finance institution has operations in six counties. And next year he will be pumping Sh1.3 billion into the expansion of his hotelbusiness in Kenya. His target is the big boys of the industry. In Nakuru, his competitor is the Serena Group. He will be putting up a five-star hotel next to Serena Elementaita Camp.
Last year he purchased a 50-acre piece of land at Sh200 million for that purpose.The hotel will also stand directly opposite Jacaranda Lake Elementaita Lodge owned by the family of the late billionaire politician Njenga Karume. The young man’s hotel will be known as Sandalwood Elementaita Lodge. It will be a 55-room facility, with a helipad and hot air balloons.
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Leon Ndubai
“I am targeting high net worth tourists who can pay US$400 (Sh34,800) per night,” he says. Sandalwood Elementaita will have 30 and 22 more rooms than Serena and Jacaranda lodges, respectively. In Nairobi, he will be investing Sh300 million in Sandalwood Villas, a 40-room boutique hotel facility in Lavington area opposite Jaffrey’s Club, the cricket club house built by billionaire Naushad Merali.
He plans to complete Sandalwood Elementaita Lodge by 2015, and Sandalwood Villas by 2016. In Malindi, he owns the Golden Beach Resort, an exclusive luxury 20 rooms hotel that is targeted at the world’s richest. At the Malindi facility, accommodation is 600 Euros (Sh70,200) a night. “Golden Beach Resort was always going to be a niche market hotel from the onset.
We wanted to set up something that was totally different to attract high net worth individuals,” he says. Completed in 2011, Leon says the performance of the hotelhas proven him right. “Whether it is high or low season, we have never gone below 50 percent bed occupancy at Golden Beach Resort,” he says.
Here, Leon is weighing up to Formula One champion, Flavio Briatore, a big-time investor at the Kenya’s coast. Briatore is putting up an exclusive Billionaires Club in Malindi, with former Italian premier, Silvio Berlusconi, as co-investor. But Leon is not comfortable being called a billionaire. “Just call me an investor”, he insists.
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