September 18, 2018 Issue

MiDA in P&I this week
Investors eye Africa for growth potential, need
Asset owners are starting to venture to Africa to make infrastructure and private equity investments. These investors are betting that a combination of population growth, massive need and building global support, including World Bank guarantees, will lead to attractive risk-adjusted returns . Read More
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Kenyan pension funds band together for infrastructure investment
Nine Kenyan pension plans have formed a coalition to invest in local infrastructure, private equity and real estate in deals structured to also potentially include direct investment by international asset owners and managers. The first project under consideration is a $2 billion toll road in Kenya — the Nairobi-Nakuru-Mau Summit Highway — that is being supported by guarantees from  the World Bank . Read More
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Mercer-MiDA report on African Infrastructure Investments Opportunities
Mercer/MiDA report on African Infrastructure Investments Opportunities
The Mercer-MiDA report on African Infrastructure Investments Opportunities has now been published. MiDA engaged Mercer Investment Consulting in a collaborative effort to investigate the barriers (perceived and real) to and opportunities for increasing institutional investors’ allocations to SubSaharan African infrastructure and to provide strategic recommendations to MiDA regarding possible courses of action the initiative could take. ( Read More )
“Risk Perceptions Among Asset Owners May Be Overblown” by Mercer
Home to over one billion people, Africa is the most youthful continent on the planet with the fastest rate of population growth. Countries across the continent have suffered from chronic underinvestment in infrastructure however, requiring significant increases in private spending to meet international peer best practices and even more to meet Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) targets. Read More
Investment Updates
Special Member spotlight:
Chicago Teachers' Pension Fund, a member of the MiDA Advisory Council, recently released an RFP to select its first investment allocation focused on African private equity markets. Senior executives from CTPF participated on MiDA delegations to Senegal and South Africa in 2017 and 2018, and engaged with various asset managers and local investors through office meetings, educational forums and infrastructure site visits. CTPF’s efforts to gain insight, education and build relationships over the past several years on African markets and opportunities has been both strategic and effective .   Read More
Texas Employees sets $125 million for infrastructure, real estate
T exas Employees Retirement System  committed a total of $125 million to three private markets investments in June, a monthly transaction report showed. Investment officials of the $29 billion fund committed $50 million to Actis Long Life Infrastructure Fund. Actis Capital, the fund's manager, will seek investment opportunities in energy projects in emerging markets . Read More
Upcoming Events
We welcome your participation at any of these events!
September 25th 2018 in New York, NY h eld at the fringe of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), the Africa Alternative Investment Intensive brings together a select group of institutional investors, fund managers and industry stakeholders for thought-provoking discussions on navigating Africa's rapidly growing, risky, and relatively non-transparent alternatives markets ( Read More.. ) 

MiDA has been invited to attend the Investor Forum, during the G-20 meetings in Argentina, November 29 th , 2018. This year's theme and focus will be"Scaling Institutional Investments for Sustainable Development ".

The goal of the Investor Forum is to bring together Institutional Investors, Heads of State and Ministers of Finance, Regulators and Development Finance Institutions to hold an open discussion that identifies concrete actions for how to scale long-term investments for sustainable development.( Read More... )
Nairobi, Kenya, October 15-19 th , 2o18
MiDA will pursue its series of infrastructure workshops with Kenyan pension funds in Nairobi in anticipation of new infrastructure and housing investment opportunities in the region. The engagement has led to the creation of a consortium of Kenyan pension funds for investing in real assets. This engagement has been covered in a story in Pensions&Investments. 
General Updates

  • On June 4-6, NASP held its 29th Annual Pension & Financial Services Conference in Houston. The concurrent Africa Financial Summit (AFS), now in its fourth year brought together speakers and attendees from South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria, Mauritius, Senegal, and other countries.

  • On the second day of the conference, MiDA convened a meeting of its Advisory Council attended by over 20 members and featured special presentations by:

World Bank on " Development Financial Institutions Offer “AAA” Guarantees for Investments in Emerging Countries"

Mercer on “Sub-Saharan Africa risk perception among asset owners may be overblown”

Arent Fox  "The international regime for enforcing rights of foreign investors in emerging countries"

  • The meeting also featured testimonies by Advisory Council members on their take aways from the Delegation trips & Investment learning Process about investing in African infrastructure

  •  MiDA partnerships with international organizations, financial institutions, African pensions funds and other stakeholders continues to grow, allowing us to develop greater market intelligence, local relationships, and partnerships with potential co-investors and credit enhancement agencies. Some of these activities are highlighted below.
Conference spotlight : Women in Finance Initiative
MiDA partnered with the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) to promote the Women in Finance Global Initiative, which was launched at the last G20 heads of state summit. The discussion featured prominent women in finance from the pension and investment management industry in the United States and Africa, to explore solutions for incubation and exchange programs and the utilization of financing facilities to support women led economic enterprises. 
 
Over the course of the conference, NASP members heard presentations by  Ms. Vera Songwe,  Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission on Africa;  Priya Basu , Head of Secretariat, Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative (We-fi) housed in the World Bank group, and  Mona S. Williams , President of Progress Investment Management Company.
Upcoming Events

  • UN General Assembly (UNGA 73), 18 Sept.– 5 Oct. 2018 New York City

  • SuperReturn Africa, Nov. 5-7, 2018 in Cape Town, South Africa

  • African Development Bank launches the Africa Investment Forum (AIF), Nov. 7-9, 2018 in Johannesburg, South Africa

  • African Agri Invesment INDABA, Nov. 27-28, 2018 in Cape Town, South Africa
 
  • Save the Date: MiDA Delegation to Africa, April 2019 Details coming soon
News
MiDA highlights challenges, opportunities for investing in African infrastructure:
The study titled  Investment in African Infrastructure: Challenges and Opportunities  was facilitated by MiDA, a partnership between the National Association of Securities Professionals (NASP) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Office of Private Capital and Microenterprise and the Africa Private Capital Group of the Southern Africa Mission. Read More
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New report on private capital for infrastructure in the poorest countries: 2017 a stellar year
What do Bangladesh, Honduras, and Senegal have in common? They all have per capita Gross Net Income below $1,165, allowing them to borrow from the World Bank’s International Development Association (IDA) that provides concessional financing to the world’s poorest countries. There are 72 other such IDA-eligible countries. Read More
UK initiatives to generate up to $10bn for Africa
The UK Prime Minister Theresa May has announced a range of measures to boost much-needed investment in businesses and infrastructure across Africa, including an additional £4bn of private sector investment into the continent. As part of this, CDC, the UK’s Development Finance Institution, will significantly increase its investment into Africa – aiming to invest up to £3.5bn in businesses on the continent over four years.   Read More
World Bank unveils fresh N2.7 trillion investment strategy in Nigeria for 2019
Days after 10 of its executive directors departed Nigeria after a three-day visit, the World Bank on Monday announced a fresh $8.8 billion (about N2.69 trillion) investment strategy in the country in the 2019 fiscal year.

New agency will boost US investment in emerging markets
For nearly 50 years, the US has been at a competitive disadvantage in the realm of commercial diplomacy. After the Marshall Plan, which was the gold standard in aligning commercial and development interests in the 1940s and 1950s, the US ceded leadership on development finance to multilateral institutions and stepped into the background.

African Infrastructure Investment Managers (AIIM) announces investment into airport holding company, SEGAP
Cape Town and London, 03 July 2018:  African Infrastructure Investment Managers (AIIM), Africa’s largest and most experienced infrastructure-focused private equity fund manager and a member of Old Mutual Alternative Investments, today announces its acquisition, through African Infrastructure Investment Fund 3 (AIIF3), of a 50% stake in Société d’Exploitation et de Gestion Aéroportuaires (SEGAP), a holding company with an established portfolio of airport investments across West and Central Africa. 

Infrastructure at the heart of Senegal government’s grand plan
Senegal still faces great problems as it seeks to improve the lot of the nearly half of its population who live below the poverty line. It has turned to infrastructure spending to spur development.