Rush for China remains blind to Africa’s riches
INVESTORS are missing out on “massive returns” by ignoring Africa and sticking to China, according to Bob Geldof, the rock star turned private-equity investor.
He criticised fund managers for ignoring what he called the “forgotten continent”.
Fund managers were prepared to endure “endless hardship to get to Asia”, Geldof said.
“With regard to Africa, the fund industry is criminally non-innovative,” Geldof told the Financial Times. “[Fund managers] are actually paid to invest money according to their principles, so how can they justify ignoring one billion people in the world’s fastest-growing markets?”
Geldof has backed 8 Miles, a fund named after the distance between Africa and the most southern tip of Europe, which raised $200-million (about R2.14 - billion) last year to invest across the continent. The fund has also been backed by Kofi Annan, the former UN secretary-general, and sponsored by the investment bank Credit Lyonnais Securities Asia.
CDC, the British government’s development institution, has also invested in the fund.
Geldof is best known for organising the Live Aid concert to raise funds for famine relief in Africa in 1985. His foray into private equity followed in the footsteps of U2’s Bono, who co-founded Elevation Partners in 2005.
Meanwhile, an analysis of the countries with the greatest potential for economic growth found that four of the top five were in Africa. They were Rwanda, Liberia, Zambia and Gambia.
The fifth country was Cambodia, according to Caroline Shaw, a fund manager at Courtiers. — ©