Africa

“I think that this great power competition between China and the U.S. And potentially other countries mixed in creates a really interesting environment for frontier markets like Africa, maybe some of the less developed countries in Latin America and Asia as wel…”

“We have made a series of what I consider seed investments. Not all the companies are startups. They're, in some cases, larger. Valuations have been between 20 and a hundred and fifty million. We've looked at some that are approaching a billion dollars, and I m…”

“There's more natural gas that gets flared in the US every year than the amount of energy consumed in Africa and Japan.”

“High single digit. There's some stuff in the teens, for sure, but that's crazy.”

“We know that inter-country correlation is much, much higher than sector correlation across Africa, for example.”

“The Middle East where I was based is still predominantly emerging market in terms of trades, and obviously Africa is probably the most exciting emerging marketplace for us.”

“We don't have many opportunities like that in, in Africa.”

“We've seen private equity firms coming to the public markets, and Picking off the best jewels, which are trading at four times P, five times P and taking them private. So we have seen that materialize over the last few years in Africa.”

“In the context of Africa, I would say for me and probably for us, it's reporting in local currency without reporting in dollars as well. That can be extremely misleading in high inflation environments, and I really think that that shouldn't be allowed, basical…”

“The world is not necessarily integrating any further at the moment. If anything, people are taking a bit of a step back, and we think that's going to make places like Africa even less correlated with the U.S. Markets”

“By the end of the century, that's going to be 40%. By the end of the century, four in every 10 people are going to be African, and the urbanization story that goes along with that is absolutely colossal.”

“Africa as a whole, it's a three trillion dollar economy, eighth largest equivalent economy in the world, one and a half billion people”

“If you look at the top 10 or top 20 fastest growing economies in the world, Africa always makes up Half of those, and has done for many years, and is expected to continue to do so.”

“So the valuations PE, you're paying eight times. On the private side, you're paying price to sales eight times for the similar exposure.”

“But although there aren't a lot of people investing in Africa today, we know of some of the most successful of the large endowments and foundations in the U S today have very significant exposure to Africa and are achieving very good performance in those marke…”

“Africa up about 30% this year so far, and we are in that manager, thankfully.”

“Africa tends to do quite well when the commodity cycle is strong. They benefit. There's an argument to be made that it is an easier China play than China itself.”

“Africa is a tough market for raising money. It's dominated by the development finance institutions, IFC, EBRD, who are particular in the kind of managers and kind of funds they want to back.”

“Even more recently, the Chinese approach into Africa has not been an aid-driven approach. It's more of investment. Both of these models have their problems.”