Michael Oyebola, the Managing Director and Chief Investment Officer of FBN Capital Asset Management Limited, has highlighted Nigeria’s position as one of the top foreign institutional fund destinations in West Africa. He made this known as part of a presentation titled “Nigeria: West Africa’s most viable destination for US institutional funds” during the 2015 edition of the Africa Institutional Funds & Managers Series (AIFMS), in New York, on Wednesday.
Speaking at the event, Mr. Oyebola stated, “Nigeria has a compelling investment business case, despite the socio-economic challenges currently being faced. The country continues to show great potential in core areas of interest to traditional institutional fund managers, while its burgeoning middle-class and status as Africa’s largest economy following the rebasing establishes it as the sub-region’s most viable investment destination.
Mr Oyebola highlighted the country’s ongoing revival in agriculture, the vast and untapped power resources, a progressive financial services sector, the untold potential which remains in oil and gas, as well as a vibrant telecoms and ICT industry, among other investment-stimulating factors. According to him, ‘in agriculture the investment opportunities which exist in food processing and storage facilities, crop production, and animal husbandry due to a huge domestic demand are many, while in the power sector, the nation’s gas agenda facilitates a potential for aggressive gas-based industrial growth.
He summarily noted that crucial to the successful performance of institutional fund investment from the US and other continents to Nigeria, is partnership with leading investment and asset management firms in the sub-region to ensure knowledge and expertise of the local operating environment.
In 2014, FBN Capital was recognized as the Best Investment Bank in Nigeria for the third year running by Global Finance Magazine. Its Asset Management subsidiary, FBN Capital Asset Management also emerged as the best Asset Manager in Nigeria at the EMEA Finance African Banking Awards. It received the World Finance Banking Awards as the Best Investment Bank in Nigeria and the EMEA Finance African Banking Awards as the Best Local Investment Bank in 2013.