APQ Global, an emerging markets investment firm with a focus on Asia, Latin America, Emerging Europe, the Middle East and Africa, has acquired New Markets Media & Intelligence.

The company was founded in 2015 as Frontier Funds Media & Intelligence by Gavin Serkin, previously Bloomberg’s Emerging Markets Editor-at-Large and the author of Frontier, to focus on challenges and opportunities in the developing world through research, intelligence, media and investor forums.

The company’s acquisition by London Stock Exchange-listed APQ Global supports an increase in journalists and business managers globally.

“The platform that Gavin created is working to open up the less understood corners of our planet to business and investment,” said Bart Turtelboom, CEO of APQ.

“This aligns with our mission at APQ to reach places and sectors that will benefit most from our financial support and, in turn, also benefit our stakeholders in the long term as investors,” he said.

Frontier and emerging markets are home to 85% of the world’s population and two-thirds of global GDP, with Africa alone holding more known mineral reserves than any other continent.

Relative to this, investment allocation and media coverage remain marginal.

New Markets Media & Intelligence works with journalists, analysts, events organisers and investment institutions to address the imbalance through re-evaluating perceptions of relative value, risk and reward.

As part of its campaign, New Markets Media & Intelligence is re-launching Serkin’s investment show, Emerging Opportunities, producing white papers and opinion editorials on impact investment and transformational technology, and organizing a series of conferences with partners including Bloomberg, the London Stock Exchange, the Institute of International Finance, Fitch Ratings and Aberdeen Standard Investments.

“Trillions of our pension dollars are held back from investments that would improve lives in the developing world because of a distorted bias against frontier and emerging markets as universally risky,” said Serkin.

“More than a decade after the developed world’s financial crisis, we’re beginning to debunk this delusion and draw funding to regions that are fast overtaking as the economies of the future.”

The management team of New Markets Media & Intelligence includes Wesley Davis, APQ’s Finance Director and the founder of agricultural and commodity businesses in Nigeria, and BBC radio presenter, business editor and PR director, Jules Serkin. 

In addition, New Markets Media & Intelligence has hired Will Rankin, the founder of Banker Middle Eastand Pipeline, as Business Development and Editorial Manager.

Rankin commented: “I'm proud to be joining an expert team that is driving better informed decision making on new investment opportunities and challenging the way the world thinks about frontier and emerging markets.”