London Investment Bank Picks Kenyan for Top African Job

By Brian Ngugi

A F R I C A MERCHANT 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 fi nance deals into and out of Africa.

Mr. Ngumi moves to AMC from renewable energy fi rm 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 fi nance.

His hiring follows news in December that the fi rm 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 fi rst 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 coff ee.

The deals space has, however, been negatively aff ected by the Covid pandemic, with fi rms going slow on new investments as they wait to see the longer term eff ects of the pandemic on the economy.

In the fi rst 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 fi rst 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 fi rms in the Covid-19 hit travel, entertainment, energy and fi nancial sectors could be snapped up by private equity funds eyeing quick bargains, Japanese law fi rm, Anderson Mori & Tomotsune said last November.. www.businessdailyafrica.com/bd/markets/market-news/ london-investment-kenyan-for-top-african-job-3260982 Image credit: LinkedIn

in the numbers of civilians killed by government forces this year.

Raymakers said that while militant groups had become more eff ective, government counteroff ensives 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 outfi ts. 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”

(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