Daily Times Nigeria Monday, September 7 , 2015
Business Times
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BoI, partners grow Africa on $60m equity capital for SMEs Stories by Emmanuel Ogbonnaya, Business Editor The Bank of Industry (BoI) has created a new category fund for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in the country, the bank entered into a partnership with Grow Africa Equity Partners Limited to set raise $60 million Venture Capital Fund for small businesses. Under the arrangement, the bank has made an investment commitment of $6 million to aid provision of equity capital for fast growing businesses. Indeed, the Venture Capital Fund aims to provide equity capital, along with strategic and operational support to early stage
and fast growing businesses involved in technology, agriculture, consumer goods and services sectors. BoI’s Managing Director, Rasheed Olaoluwa in a statement at the weekend, said: “Nigerian businesses cannot be built on debt alone. It has long been part of the bank’s vision to find ways to provide sorely needed equity capital and business advice to promising Nigerian businesses. Our partnership with Grow Africa is one of the avenues for realising this vision and we remain committed to the pursuit of our core mandate of providing longterm financial support to small, medium and large companies/ projects in Nigeria’s key sectors’.
Olaoluwa added that the investment commitment was informed by the track record of Grow Africa’s partners, the developmental impact of their existing portfolio and their strong pipeline for potential new investments. On his part, the Chairman of Grow Africa Equity Partners Limited, Adedotun Sulaiman, noted that with the right type of support, Nigerian business can become global leaders. Sulaiman who also chairs the Boards of Interswitch, SecureID, IDEA, New Horizons and others, said: “Over the past 10 years, I have provided capital and advice that have helped several businesses grow from ideas into multi billion Naira industrial leaders.
Through this partnership, I hope to see many more entrepreneurs realise their dreams of creating leading companies and delivering massive value to Nigeria’. Managing Director of Grow Africa Equity Partners Limited, Afam Edozie, added that, “we are extremely pleased with this partnership with BoI, and this is a strong signal of the bank’s commitment to supporting indigenous Fund Managers to catalyse growth and sustainable development in Nigeria. “This new investment will increase development impact and socio-economic benefits through the creation of additional jobs, development of local entrepreneurship and will
create additional fiscal revenue to Government. The Bank of Industry has demonstrated that they share our dedication and passion in helping to build world class industries in Nigeria”. The Bank of Industry is Nigeria’s leading industrial development financing company, with a loan portfolio of N592 billion to projects in Nigeria’s real sectors of Agro-Processing, Solid Minerals, Gas & Petrochemicals, as well as Engineering & Technology. Similarly, it supports SMEs through a network of 14 offices across Nigeria and 122 Business Development Services Providers (BDSPs).
L-R: Managing Partner, Redmediaafrica, Mr. Chude Jideonwo; Publisher, Tw Magazine, Adesuwa Onyenokwe; Executive Director, Sterling Bank Plc, Mr. Abubakar Suleiman and Executive Director, Field of Skills and Dreams VTE Academy, Omowale Ogunrinde, during a press conference on get ready for work in Lagos... Friday
PENCOM sets global stage to boost pension fund investments in Africa The National Pension Commission (PenCom) in demonstrating its leadership role in the continent is again setting the stage for global participation in Africa’s pension sector, which has been identified as a sustainable vehicle for infrastructural development with plans to host the second edition of the World Pension Summit ‘Africa Special’ in Abuja. Nigeria’s contributory pension regulator PenCom widely acknowledged for its transparent administration by major global stakeholders, under the leadership of its Director General Mrs. Chinelo Anohu-Amazu, is riding on the back of its excellent reputation to integrate the continent’s
pension fund sector with the global investment community. The second edition of World Pension Summit ‘Africa Special’ will hold on the 5th and 6th October 2015 at the Congress Hall of the Transcorp Hilton Hotel, Abuja, Nigeria and has its theme as “Building sustainable pension systems in Africa” and is expected to attract diverse experts from across the world in the areas of investments, infrastructure financing, real estate and other pension related fields. Announcing this in Lagos at the weekend, Anohu-Amazu disclosed that the upcoming edition promises more yield than the first edition hosted by Nigeria
last year which was adjudged a success as over 400 delegates from 23 countries, including 15 African countries were in attendance. She further disclosed that in line with the theme of the 2015 conference, a number of subthemes have also been carefully selected that would resonate with all stakeholders in realising the objective of enhancing pension administration in Africa. “You will agree with me that Africa today, faces huge infrastructure challenges and pension funds, as long-term capital are ideally suited for investment in infrastructure. However, infrastructure financing is still a major challenge for most African
countries despite the availability of huge aggregate of pension funds,” she said. Anohu-Amazu disclosed that the plenaries on “The real deal: Structuring pension investments for sustainability” and “expanding investment frontiers for pension funds” both aim to address the issue of sustainability in the investment of pension funds and the frameworks that need to be developed to achieve wider scope for investment of pension funds. On the progress of micro pension plans in Africa, she noted that not much has been achieved so far, stressing that it was appropriate to focus attention on the huge opportunities that ex-
ist in this area to encourage African countries take bold steps to come up with suitable and innovative pension plans, that would adequately cater for the needs of informally employed individuals. In his remarks, Harry Smorenberg, Founder and Chairman of the World Pension Summit, noted that Africa’s growth story, particularly Nigeria as its largest economy, has been well documented, however with such growth comes a responsibility, expectation and opportunity to leverage capital growth, using pension funds as an instrument for further economic and social development.