Sudhir Ruparelia Buys Old Mutual’s Historic Kimathi Avenue Property as Insurer Advances East Africa Real-Estate Exit

Ugandan billionaire businessman Dr Sudhir Ruparelia has acquired Old Mutual’s historic property on Kimathi Avenue in Kampala’s Central Business District, CEO East Africa Magazine has reliably learnt.

Sources familiar with the transaction say the property – long known as the UAP Insurance Building on Plot 1 Kimathi Avenue – has changed hands for an amount that has not yet been disclosed.

The acquisition puts another strategic central Kampala property into the orbit of the Ruparelia Group, whose real-estate interests are concentrated under Meera Investments Limited, while Crane Management Services (CMS) provides property management across an extensive portfolio of commercial, retail, residential and hospitality properties.

For Old Mutual, meanwhile, the transaction appears to fit into a much larger retreat from directly held property across East Africa.

As recently as September 2026, Old Mutual Holdings Group CEO Arthur Oginga said the financial-services group was reviewing offers for properties in Uganda and expected progress on its regional disposal programme over the coming months, with some transactions potentially concluding by mid-2027.

The Kimathi Avenue building has deep roots in Uganda’s insurance industry.

Historical UAP records identify UAP Insurance Building, Plot 1 Kimathi Avenue as the Kampala headquarters of UAP Insurance Uganda and also as the address of UAP Properties Uganda.

Even Old Mutual plc’s 2016 accounts still recorded UAP Insurance Uganda at Plot 1 Kimathi Avenue, reflecting the property’s importance within the East African business that Old Mutual had acquired.

That changed during 2016, when UAP Old Mutual shifted its insurance operations to the substantially larger Nakawa Business Park development on Old Port Bell Road. The Insurance Regulatory Authority’s 2016 market report lists UAP Old Mutual Insurance Uganda at 6th Floor, Block B, Nakawa Business Park, Plot 3-5 Old Port Bell Road, while a December 2016 UAP announcement informed customers that the company had moved its head office to Nakawa.

The Kimathi property nevertheless remained associated with UAP’s property interests for years after the operating insurance business relocated.

Its acquisition by Ruparelia therefore represents more than the purchase of another office block: it transfers a long-standing institutional property at the heart of Kampala’s CBD from one of Africa’s largest financial-services groups to one of Uganda’s most expansive private commercial-property investors.

The transaction comes as Old Mutual pares back an East African property portfolio that was once a major part of the former UAP Group investment strategy.

At the end of 2024, Old Mutual Holdings reported KSh19.42 billion of investment property, compared with KSh21.24 billion a year earlier. Before portions classified as owner-occupied property were stripped out, the individual properties carried a combined valuation of approximately KSh21.38 billion.

Uganda was a substantial part of that portfolio.

Old Mutual’s 2024 accounts valued Nakawa Business Park at KSh4.37 billion, Nakawa House at KSh420 million and another Ugandan property/plot at KSh310 million. Overall, investment property attributed to Uganda stood at about KSh5.1 billion.

The sprawling Nakawa Business Park is particularly important because it remains the home of several Old Mutual businesses in Uganda. Current Capital Markets Authority records, for example, place Old Mutual Investment Group Uganda at Nakawa Business Park.

Yet Nakawa is also on the disposal radar.

Old Mutual has said it is prepared to sell the wider regional portfolio where acceptable offers are available. The group has previously disclosed sale agreements over properties in Kenya, a deposit from the Rwandan government on a property there, and interest in properties in South Sudan. In Uganda, management first said assets were undergoing valuation and has since confirmed that offers have been received and are being reviewed.

That makes the reported Kimathi Avenue transaction particularly significant: it would represent tangible progress in the Uganda leg of a regional strategy that, until recently, was largely characterised by valuations, negotiations and offers.

Old Mutual has explained the strategy in investment-return terms. Management says rental yields from the portfolio have struggled to match prevailing market interest rates, while capital appreciation over roughly a decade has been relatively flat.

The South African parent remains firmly behind the regional business. Old Mutual Limited’s accounts show it controls 67% of Old Mutual Holdings plc, the Kenya-incorporated holding company through which much of the East African operation sits.

For Ruparelia, the transaction follows a recognisable strategy: a combination of greenfield development and opportunistic acquisition of existing prime properties.

Meera Investments, established in the 1990s, has developed major projects including Kingdom Kampala, commercial office blocks, apartments and mixed-use properties. Crane Management Services sits alongside it as the Group’s property-management platform. Ruparelia Group itself describes Meera as one of Uganda’s largest property developers and CMS as the business responsible for managing the Group’s extensive portfolio.

Public descriptions of the platform have put the number of properties managed by CMS at more than 450, spanning offices, hotels, residential buildings and retail space.

The Kimathi transaction also joins a growing list of outright purchases.

In October 2020, Meera Investments acquired Simbamanyo House on Lumumba Avenue for US$5 million – about UGX18.4-18.5 billion at the time – after an Equity Bank auction. The property, which houses the Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development, was subsequently renamed Gender & Labour House.

Four years later, Ruparelia and his wife Jyotsna acquired the 14-storey Lotis Towers in Nakasero following an auction by dfcu Bank. CEO East Africa previously reported the consideration at approximately US$6 million. The property was subsequently renamed Arie Towers. The transaction was formally communicated to tenants in May 2024, with dfcu confirming the change in ownership.

Those acquisitions sit alongside internally developed projects such as Kingdom Kampala, Pearl Business Park, Windsor House and the Group’s expanding residential portfolio, reinforcing a model in which Ruparelia is willing both to build from scratch and acquire existing properties where location and pricing present an opportunity.

The Kimathi Avenue deal also arrives at an interesting point for Kampala’s commercial-property market.

Knight Frank Uganda’s latest H1 2026 Kampala Property Market Performance Review depicts an office sector increasingly split between newer, higher-quality buildings and ageing stock.

Average rents for Grade A offices rose to US$17 per square metre per month, from US$16.50 in H1 2025, while Grade AB rents declined to about US$14 per square metre from US$14.50. Average occupancy was 87% across Grade A+/A properties, compared with 83% for Grade AB stock.

Prime Grade A+ offices were commanding about US$18 per square metre per month. Knight Frank says the market is experiencing a clear ‘flight to quality’, with occupiers putting greater weight on building quality, efficient layouts, management standards, employee experience and – critically in Kampala – adequate parking.

Knight Frank says more than 130,000 square metres of office space remains in the development pipeline, even as a substantial share of current leasing demand represents businesses relocating from one building to another rather than entirely new demand entering the market.

That distinction is particularly relevant to older CBD properties.

Knight Frank’s research shows that ageing buildings increasingly face longer vacancies and pressure either to refurbish, improve services and parking, offer more flexible leases or compete on price, while newer buildings capture tenants willing to pay for quality.

The Old Mutual/UAP building is therefore being transferred at a time when location alone is no longer enough to guarantee superior office performance.

Kimathi Avenue sits deep inside Kampala’s traditional financial and commercial core, within walking distance of Kampala Road, Parliament Avenue and several major banks, insurers, government offices and corporate headquarters. For a property group with the scale, construction experience and management infrastructure of the Ruparelia Group, the acquisition adds another centrally located asset whose future could range from continued office use to refurbishment or eventual redevelopment.

CEO East Africa has not established whether Ruparelia intends to retain the existing building substantially as it is, renovate it or pursue a more extensive redevelopment.

The Kimathi Avenue transaction ultimately brings together two sharply different property strategies.

Old Mutual is recycling capital out of real estate, arguing that direct property ownership has not generated sufficient rental yields and capital appreciation relative to other investment opportunities.

Ruparelia is still accumulating strategic property, using Meera Investments, Crane Management Services and the Group’s development capabilities to deepen an already formidable position in Kampala real estate.

And the contrast could become even more pronounced.

If Old Mutual succeeds in selling Nakawa Business Park, valued at KSh4.37 billion at the end of 2024, one of Kampala’s biggest institutional office properties could also pass into new ownership.

For now, however, the first big Uganda deal appears to have landed much closer to the centre of town.

The former UAP headquarters on Kimathi Avenue – a building that for years carried one of the insurance industry’s most recognisable addresses – is, according to CEO East Africa’s sources, now part of the Ruparelia property empire.