Lucas Wurfbain, Fund Manager, Insparo Asset Management calls for African investors to focus on Africa…
Fair and open trade between the BRICS countries and Africa is a necessity, however we feel that any desire to increase “correlation” to the BRICS markets in general, especially at this juncture, is not in Africa’s best interest.
It is the actual lack of correlation that exists between Africa and broader markets, especially the OECD countries, that provides Africa’s unique, idiosyncratic growth profile going forward. Africa has been rapidly improving its external debt position across the board, and debt servicing costs, both on a sovereign as well as corporate level, have improved dramatically.
We feel that the most interesting investment opportunities in public as well as private markets exists in Africa itself and we feel that inward investment carries with it far more interesting return dynamics than a focus on other markets which are many years ahead of it on their growth trajectory.
As an example, there remains a dramatic need for infrastructure investment and we believe that if countries across the continent can continue to increase transparency and rule of law then they will be very well placed to continue to attract large amounts of foreign capital to invest in such projects.
