Business
Russia’s Renaissance Group: Now is the time to Invest in Africa
The firm’s products include a sub-Saharan fund which counts South African telecom firm MTN Group Ltd and Nigerian Zenith Bank Plc., among its top holdings. The fund has, however, fallen about 17 percent since its inception in October last year due to dampening appetite for riskier assets.
Renaissance is more bullish on Africa’s infrastructure, consumer-related and financial sectors, which will benefit from the region’s growing prosperity, rather than commodities.
“The real appeal of Africa is the rise of the consumer society. Africa has got a population the size of India and consumer force as big as India,” he said.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) said in October it was still positive about the outlook for sub-Saharan Africa because of the growth in areas such as mining. It said the region is expected to post nearly 6 percent growth in 2012, rising from just above 5 percent on average this year.
Turning to China, Monovski said he does not expect a hard landing in the world’s second largest economy but felt China was already “very discovered”.
“We want to look at other regions in the world which looked like China in the late 90s,” he said.
