Invest AD hires fund manager for growing Africa investments

Abu Dhabi financial services company Invest AD has hired a new fund manager to join the team running its Africa equities fund.

Stephane Bwakira, who has managed and launched funds for Stanlib in South Africa and was previously an equities analyst for Investec, is joining the team that manages the Invest AD, Emerging Africa Fund, which delivered a 19.3 percent total return in 2010.

“I’d say that a major theme in coming years is the underinvestment in infrastructure from the sixties to the early nineties, which has created a backlog of needs on the continent,” said Bwakira, who holds dual South Africa and Burundi nationality.

“We’re going to be following actively the flow in fixed capital formation and related sectors -- areas such as the cement sector, infrastructure companies, and financial services.”

Bwakira speaks fluent English, French and Kirundi, the main language of Burundi, and has lived and worked in South Africa, Burundi, Ethiopia, Angola, France, Switzerland and the United States.

The Invest AD Emerging Africa Fund focuses on some Africa’s most promising markets, including Nigeria, Ghana, and Kenya, investing in several sectors, including banking, mining, consumer products and manufacturing, through listed equities, initial public offerings (IPOs), as well as pre-IPO and unlisted equity.

Some of the world’s fastest growing economies are in Africa, with Ghana’s gross domestic product forecast to expand at 10 percent this year, eclipsing India and China, according to the International Monetary Fund. Zambia’s economy is forecast to grow 6.4 percent in 2011 and Nigeria’s is expected to grow 7.4 percent.

Invest AD, with over three decades of investment experience, provides access to private equity, listed equities and fixed income investments in the Middle East and Africa. The company, owned by the Abu Dhabi government, has established partnerships with Japan’s SBI Holdings, BHF-BANK in Germany, the Korean Development Bank, and Hong Kong's Quam Ltd.