London Investment Bank Picks Kenyan for Top African Job By Brian Ngugi A F R I C A M E R C H A N T CAPITAL, (AMC) a privately owned boutique merchant bank based in London has appointed Kenyan executive Richard Ngumi as its new transactor in charge of originating trade finance deals into and out of Africa. Mr. Ngumi moves to AMC from renewable energy firm Dream EP Global Energy Kenya, where he had been serving as a consultant for over two years. AMC focuses exclusively on the high growth private capital markets of Sub-Sahara Africa. Mr. Ngumi formerly worked at Stanbic Bank and Standard Bank – in investment banking, as well as trade and commodity finance. His hiring follows news in December that the firm had secured $6.5 million (Sh716 million) in investment from Zebu Investment Partners (ZIP), a private equity fund which works to boost food security on the continent. Since providing its first transaction in 2016, AMC says it has completed a number of deals in African countries such as Cameroon, Ghana, Kenya and Nigeria, where it has facilitated exports and imports
for soft commodities including cocoa, cashew and coffee. The deals space has, however, been negatively affected by the Covid pandemic, with firms going slow on new investments as they wait to see the longer term effects of the pandemic on the economy. In the first half of last year the value of private equity deals on the continent recorded a 63% drop compared to the previous year, a report from the African Private Equity and Venture Capital Association (AVCA) showed. The value of the 81 private equity deals reported stood at just $700 million. The Sub-Saharan Africa region is expected to fall into its first recession for 25 years as economic growth reverses and plunges due to the Covid-19 global crisis according to the World Bank. Several distressed Kenyan firms in the Covid-19 hit travel, entertainment, energy and financial sectors could be snapped up by private equity funds eyeing quick bargains, Japanese law firm, Anderson Mori & Tomotsune said last November..
in the numbers of civilians killed by government forces this year. Raymakers said that while militant groups had become more effective, government counteroffensives had often failed, and exacerbated core problems, because of abuses against civilians. “Generally, the counterterrorism strategies taken are mainly military-focused, deploying military forces to seek and destroy armed outfits. The problem is thatthese groups are driven by a set of local grievances,” said Raymakers. Burkina Faso, Mali, Somalia, Cameroon, Mozambique, Niger and the DRC were all classed as at extreme risk. Mozambique had seen a dramatic change this
year as militancy in its remote Cabo Delgado region which had previously been seen as a limited threat was now overspilling into the wider region and posing a serious challenge to security forces. Rights groups have claimed that military abuses, neglect and the actions of companies seeking to exploit Cabo Delgado’s recent gemstone and gas discoveries have fuelled a “cocktail of violence”
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www.businessdailyafrica.com/bd/markets/market-news/ london-investment-kenyan-for-top-african-job-3260982 Image credit: LinkedIn
(www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/sep/18/ mozambique-cabo-delgado-cocktail-of-violence-escalatesel-dorado-of-gemstones).
www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/ dec/11/sub-saharan-africa-named-worlds-riskiestregion-for-investment Image credit: prosperafrica.com
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