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The 13th Annual AVCA Conference

THE 13th ANNUAL AVCA CONFERENCE

Dates: 25th – 27th April 2016

Location: Sheraton Addis – Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

The AVCA Conference is the flagship event for the African Private Equity and Venture Capital industry and provides an important platform for GPs, LPs and investors interested in the continent to discuss the most pertinent opportunities and issues of the year.

The 13th annual conference focused on making the business case for private equity in Africa by highlighting the wide array of investment opportunities, strategies employed and success stories. It also saw the launch of two AVCA research reports, the AVCA/EY Exit Study, providing valuable data about the exits landscape in Africa, coupled with key information on how fund managers create value and deliver commercial returns; and finally the AVCA Sustainability Study which examined how private capital is helping to drive ESG standards across the continent.

Gong was on site managing all communications requirements of the conference.

https://www.avcaconference.com/

 

 

Lagos: Notes from the “surprising, not simply rising” continent

Sarah Caddy

News broke that Nigeria has overtaken South Africa to become Africa’s largest economy as the 500+ delegates at the African Private Equity and Venture Capital Association’s 11th annual conference in Lagos returned home (in my case, to a Saharan sand-strewn London).

Africa’s most populous country’s government released revised figures that more or less doubled estimates for its GDP, a testament to its increasingly diversified economy and growth of services that tap into the expanding consumer story. Most notably the telecommunications sector has increased from 0.8% of GDP to 8.6%.

Nigeria’s minister for economy and finance, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, is cited by the FT stating that the revision will “validate” the investment thesis to foreign investors increasingly searching for returns in the region.

They may not need reminding, however. AVCA/RisCura/SAVCA research released at the conference, noted that 24% of investors into private equity already find West Africa to be the most attractive region.

“What excites you about Nigeria?” asked William Wallis, Africa Affairs Editor at the FT in his interview with Michael Power, Investec, at the conference. “Its people are extraordinarily enterprising” came the reply. “Africa is not just the rising continent, it is the surprising continent.”

Though with Nigerian pension assets under management (currently NGN4 trillion/$25 billion) estimated (at the conference) to double in just three years, local – rather than foreign – capital may be the investment force to be reckoned with.

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Read more insights from the AVCA conference in Lagos from the Financial Times here.