White & Case assisted Acumen Fund with drafting and negotiating agreements for its investment into Ansaar Management Company (AMC), a project management company, and Immersion Private Limited (Immersion), a project development company – for a major long-term project with a view to change the future landscape of low-cost housing in Pakistan.

Acumen Fund co-invested into AMC with Jawad Aslam, a former Acumen Fund fellow responsible for the day-to-day operations of AMC. AMC’s mission is to launch a scalable version of low-cost housing with its first project to be built on 100-acres of land in Lahore, Pakistan. The project will target individuals or families with household incomes of US$85-300 per month and specialize in community-based approaches to housing development.

To develop the first project, Acumen Fund further co-invested into Immersion, with AMC and Oasis Capital (Mauritius) Limited, a private investment fund management company. The initial investments will be used to purchase land as well as fund initial project costs of Immersion. It is anticipated that this initial investment will ultimately yield 2,375 new residential lots that will eventually be built into homes, as well as 150 commercial lots, along with other social and community services.

This project is the first of a series of anticipated projects and is part of a long-term vision of Acumen Fund and Jawad Aslam to scale privately-financed affordable housing to a national level in Pakistan. Upon completion, AMC has the potential to become the first commercial low-cost housing company in Pakistan, reaching over 2,500 base-of-the-pyramid families.

We drafted and negotiated the Share Subscription Agreements and Shareholders’ Agreements for both AMC and Immersion, which were signed on March 25, 2009.

Singapore: William Kirschner and Mathew Chacko; Washington DC: Robert Bittman and Dan Levin; and New York: Jeremy Naylor, Gerret Baur, Agnes Sym, Brendan McNallen.

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