4th September, 2024
Angola’s sovereign wealth fund, Fundo Soberano de Angola (FSDEA), is becoming steadily more active as it continues to find its feet as it recovers its reputation from the corruption scandal revealed in 2018 in the so-called Panama Papers.
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8th July, 2024
Governance issues are an enduring concern for nascent African sovereign wealth funds and while Mozambique is looking for best practice in establishing a commodity-backed SWF, neighboring Zimbabwe is accused by anti-corruption watchdogs of failing to meet adequate standards in the operations of the Mutapa Investment Fund.
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3rd October, 2023
Renamed the Mutapa Investment Fund after the vast kingdom that covered modern Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe’s sovereign wealth fund is expanding rapidly raising concerns that President Emmerson Mnangagwa is building an empire beyond the remit of the constitution.
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7th July, 2023
On Thursday and Friday this week, Agaciro Development Fund hosted the second annual meeting of the African Sovereign Investors Forum (ASIF) in Kigali, Rwanda. The Forum was started by Morocco’s Ithmar Capital last year in Rabat in an attempt to increase collaboration among African SWFs, to compare notes of common challenges, and to create appealing, sizeable, Pan-African investment opportunities for foreign (e.g., Middle Eastern) SWFs.
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20th June, 2022
Today, nine SWFs from Africa came together in Rabat, Morocco, to sign a new partnership agreement, creating the “African Sovereign Investors Forum (ASIF)”. All of them except for Ghana Infrastructure Investment Fund (GIIF) were already members of IFSWF, and four of them are also part of One Planet SWF Group.
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29th July, 2021
The African continent is vast in size, diversity and wealth - and its SWFs need specific guidance on governance and resilience. Today, its wealth of US$ 97.9 billion is managed by 30 SWFs or sub-funds: 9 stabilization, 9 savings and 12 strategic funds. This capital is unevenly distributed, with significant differences between the North and the South of the Sahara desert.
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29th March, 2021
The attack on Palma in northern Mozambique last week killed dozens and delivered a blow to the country’s plans to develop its gas reserves, which are central to the government’s plans for a sovereign wealth fund.
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1st September, 2020
The Fundo Soberano de Angola (FSDEA) was established in 2012 with an initial injection of USD 5 billion from O&G proceeds, which made it (and still is) the largest SWF in all of Sub-Saharan Africa. Since then, the fund has gone through various Governance issues, with the son of the country’s President, José Filomeno “Zenú” dos Santos, acting as its Chairman. On August 15, 2020, after an eight-month trial, Zenú was sentenced to five years in jail for embezzling US$ 0.5 billion from the Central Bank. This could be a second chance for the SWF, despite the significant withdrawals faced during the past 14 months. We had the pleasure of catching up with Miguel Carneiro, former Head of Alternatives Investments at FSDEA and currently a partner at AFC & Partners.