The AGF Top 30 Service Providers is our annual guide to the best-in-class fund services organizations, covering Africa. Ranging from fund administrators and technology providers to legal firms, auditors and prime brokers, these companies are at the forefront, helping give shape to the rapidly expanding market and helping funds navigate fast paced and challenging environment.
The AGF Asset Managers Top 40 is our annual guide to the most respected and influential figures in the African asset management industry. This year’s list comprises top local asset management firms in Africa and the global industry players, which run Africa-focused funds. This is the guide to both traditional asset management firms and hedge funds, as well as fund of funds and fund of hedge funds managers.
Agricultural investment funds have underscored public and private sectors’ interest to help address the resource constraints for achieving food security. Concerns over food security are not limited to Africa, and this is now a global worry. The World Bank anticipates that urban food markets will increase fourfold by 2030, to exceed $500bn, so food production needs to more than double to meet this growing demand.
Phatisa’s African Agriculture Fund (AAF) concluded its investment of $24m in Goldenlay in early 2012. The Phatisa deal team structured and negotiated a leveraged management buyout transaction, which resulted in the exit of Aureos (now known as The Abraaj Group). The structure of the investment was a combination of mezzanine and equity funding.
Industrial space, land and insurers are three things to ponder for anyone with an appetite for a piece of prime Lagos, Nigeria, finds Anne-Louise Stranne Petersen
Seeiso Matlanyane, Research Analyst, Prescient Investment Management, explains the idea behind hedging currency exposure, focusing on Kenyan shilling and Nigerian naira
Africa’s leading mezzanine debt provider, Vantage Capital, is in the final stages of closing its third mezzanine fund. AGF catches up with Colin Rezek, co-Managing Partner at Vantage, to discuss their success story
Frontier and emerging markets have been through rather turbulent times over the past year to 18 months, mainly due to a confluence of global economic developments, the slowdown in China and resultant sell-off in commodity markets. These developments have hit African economies especially hard, with stock markets on the continent selling off more than 20% in the last year.
Africa-focused fundraising had a strong year in 2015, returning to pre-Global Financial Crisis (GFC) levels of capital raised and the number of funds closed growing from 2014, writes Christopher Elvin, Head of Private Equity Products at Preqin
There’s been an increasingly popular belief off late, that improving macroeconomic indicators across Africa suggest stable monetary policies and currency regimes are expected - with a better focus on debt management and issuance. While Africa has always promised to deliver on that front, it has only now started to gather a wider audience in financial circles. For apart from the continent being one the fastest expanding regions in the world today, with diverse internal and external trends propelling its growth, it has also achieved stability in its political landscape. All this makes for a potent mix to enable further growth.
The AGF Private Equity Top 40 is our annual guide to the most influential, innovative and powerful figures in the private equity industry. Ranging from pan-emerging markets giants to local fund managers, this year’s list comprises individuals who have been in the forefront of Africa private equity and venture capital investing.
Currently at over 1 billion inhabitants, the African population is set to double by 2050. With such unprecedented growth, a number of existing challenges around food security and affordable housing will become acute if there are not adequate interventions from governments, NGOs and the private sector.
Currencies in the sub-Saharan African (SSA) region have had a tumultuous ride this year, undermined by a prolonged commodity price slump, and the resultant spillover effects to the balance of payments and fiscal positions, as well as global growth concerns and external monetary policy decisions.