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SA entrepreneurs open Orbvest, their US medical property fund yielding 8% pa.

In this week’s episode of Rational Radio, Martin Freeman, a successful South African entrepreneur and now New York-based CEO of Orbvest, unpacked the strategy behind the $200m fund that’s yielding 8% a year. He shared a fascinating story of a team that have successfully transported their SA template of investing in highly specialised buildings that host medical professionals.- Alec Hogg

Listen to the podcast here: https://omny.fm/shows/rational-perspective/sa-entrepreneurs-open-orbvest-to-others-us-medical

Martin Freeman is now based in New York you’re in South Africa at the moment.

I am yes I’m visiting my offices.

You guys have got quite an extraordinary story. I guess many people in the country will remember you as an entrepreneur who started Bayport and then went into other things. You went to the United States and then with together with a couple of other South African entrepreneurs started Orbvest, with a very specific intention. I guess to start with, to look after your own money…. but just unpack what you guys are doing over there.

Firstly, thank you for having me on your show today. My story is that I am a serial entrepreneur and have been starting businesses and growing people in the businesses for over 30 years and I grow into large scale. So my journey with all this began in 2012 when I was privileged to attend an executive management program at Harvard in the US and became interested and determined to invest in real estate in the USA. I met my current partners at this time, who were also following a similar journey of helping South Africans invest in real estate in the US over the past five or six years. We have carved out a niche where we are interested in stable income producing real estate assets – specifically in healthcare needs. We’ve assembled a portfolio under management of over $200 million.

The United States? It’s a huge market. I can understand when you say medical services because one of your colleagues – has done very well in that here in South Africa but where do you even begin in a big market like that?

You’re absolutely correct. The starting point is you have to define an area of focus and you have to say where you want to invest in the world. I think it’s clear to most people that the US remains a very dominant economy and a powerhouse. And the next part of it is which niche. Initially my team were also involved in houses to rent and in the USA and there’s a reason why we’ve ended up settling on healthcare. And once you’ve settled on your strategy the next is which part of America. We are very decisive, we go for metropolitan areas where it’s landlord friendly where there’s a growing population. That’s the way you start. However you are correct, it takes a long time to build relationships and a network on the ground and to make sure that you partner with the right people. We have the experience and what’s most amazing is that we’ve been generating 8 percent cash on cash dollar dividends for our investors around South Africa and the world – going on six years. Bearing in mind we also we have investors from nearly 10 countries who invest into these properties along with South Africans.

You’ve been doing it for six years. You’ve been investing into medical properties and that’s in US dollar terms. It seems like a fantastic return when you have a look at what inflation is in the US. Why is it that that you can generate those kind of returns an