When Carl Fredrik Sammeli and his family swapped Sweden for South Africa in 2012, the plan was simple: spend a year away from the predictable routines of Stockholm and give their four young children international exposure. Fourteen years later, they are still here.
Sammeli tells the FM that what began as a sabbatical quickly became a life-changing commitment to the country. “Back then, my wife, Marie, and I were both running our own businesses, so we weren’t location-bound. We were approaching our 40s and keen for an adventure, a temporary change of pace somewhere a bit more exciting than Italy or Spain.”
A friend who lived in Cape Town part-time suggested they give the city a try. “We knew it was an English-speaking country with great weather and friendly people, so we said, why not?”
The decision was cemented almost immediately. “The first time I drove around the Atlantic Seaboard, I thought: ‘This looks like the French Riviera — with better energy.’”
The family found a quality of life they were reluctant to give up. “We also realised our children were getting a better education in Cape Town than they would have in Sweden. And we loved the melting pot that is South Africa. There was no reason to leave.”
Once they decided to stay, Sammeli started looking for ways to make a meaningful contribution to his adopted country. He sold some of his offshore interests, among them Prime, the award-winning PR and advertising agency he founded in Sweden at the age of 27.
Sammeli says he was always a bit of a book nerd. He dropped out of university to become a speechwriter for current Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, chair of Sweden’s Moderate Youth League at the time. The exposure to politics taught him valuable networking skills and provided a natural springboard into marketing, public affairs and crisis management.
A self-proclaimed serial entrepreneur, he says that once Prime was up and running, he started several investment and advisory ventures. “Over the years, I’ve had seven successes and three failures, and I’ve probably learnt more from the latter.”
While looking for social-impact investment opportunities in Cape Town, Sammeli met Free Market Foundation co-founders Leon Louw and Temba Nolutshungu and joined the foundation’s Khaya Lam initiative, which helps township residents obtain legal title deeds to their homes.
A visit to Khayelitsha in 2017 through Khaya Lam sparked the idea for what would become Bitprop, an innovative backyard rental model. “I knew that in theory a title deed could be leveraged for wealth creation. But how do unskilled township residents make that happen in reality?”
Sammeli assembled a team and started researching township markets. He realised there was huge demand for affordable but decent rental stock. “Everyone said it was too risky, but I believed we could help turn homeowners into property entrepreneurs and make the numbers work for investors.”
Using the family’s own capital alongside funding from a few Swedish families, Sammeli founded Bitprop in 2019, partnered with a Khayelitsha homeowner and built his first block of four rental apartments in her backyard.
Bitprop leases the homeowner’s land for 10 years, funds the construction of an apartment block behind their home, rents the units out and splits the rental income 85% to Bitprop and 15% to the homeowner. Bitprop employs and upskills local “bakkie” builders to construct the apartments while managing rental collections, maintenance and administration.
“The magic is that after 10 years Bitprop exits the partnership and all future rental income reverts to the landlord.”
Seven years on, Bitprop has built a portfolio of 730 apartments across nine lower-income areas in Cape Town. The units fetch an average monthly rental of R4,400. Tenants are mostly young professionals aged 25 to 35. “Demand is endless, with arrears virtually non-existent.”
Bitprop has increased rentals by 10% a year, giving investors a decent 15% annual return. The company reached a major milestone last year when it secured Stanlib Asset Management as its first institutional backer with a R160m investment, which will allow it to scale to at least 1,250 units over the next few years.
Meanwhile, Sammeli isn’t resting on his laurels. Other ventures include local entrepreneurial investment and advisory business REY17 and talent-search platform Idili. Last year, he was also appointed honorary consul of Sweden to support Swedish business interests in the Eastern and Western Cape.
