Top global investors converge in Nairobi

Some of the world’s key investors and East Africa’s leading companies on Wednesday converged in Nairobi for Renaissance Capital’s 4^th Annual East Africa Investor Conference.

The three-day event is an opportunity for those who view East Africa as a potential investment location to network with the region’s companies looking for growth capital.

Renaissance Capital expects to conduct more than 100 one-on-one meetings between international and domestic investors, and leading corporates from different sectors in the region. Companies participating in this year’s conference come from a variety of sectors such as consumer and retail, insurance, media, utilities, oil & gas, telecoms, finance, cement production, and brewing. The conference has been preceded by bespoke trips to Tanzania and Rwanda on September 17 and 18, respectively.

On the threshold of the conference, Renaissance Capital completed a UGX167 billion IPO for CiplaQCIL, a Uganda-based pharmaceutical company focused on the production of high-quality and affordable life-saving medicines – a crucial humanitarian mission for Uganda, East Africa and beyond. Monday was the first trading day for the company with the ceremonial bell ringing on the Uganda Securities Exchange.

The conference commenced with an opening speech by Anna Vyshlova, Renaissance Capital’s Co-CEO, followed by a presentation ‘Kenya-Twin deficits and Industrialisation’, by Renaissance Capital’s Yvonne Mhango, Sub-Saharan Africa Economist, and Charles Robertson, Global Chief Economist.

“We are holding the conference during tough times for emerging markets, but Africa is doing well. Countries that invest can overcome many other challenges, and the success of this conference taking place in Nairobi for the fourth time is just one more example of how paving the way for investments can improve the growth outlook. We take pride in executing recently completed CiplaQCIL IPO and believe that the deal will also have a broader socio-economic impact in the region by way of improving employment, the national trade balance and ultimately the investment climate in general,” said Anna Vyshlova, Co-CEO, Renaissance Capital.

Ruslan Babaev, Co-CEO, added: “Renaissance Capital is delighted to welcome key local and international investors to our conference. Our leadership in East Africa is hard to match: we acted as advisor and bookrunner in the first three IPOs in Rwanda; we executed East Africa’s largest rights issue; and we arranged the first joint offering on the Ugandan and Kenyan stock exchanges. We remain committed to Africa and in particular East Africa as one of our core markets.”

Renaissance Capital was named the Most Innovative Investment Bank for Emerging Markets in 2018 in The Banker magazine’s annual ‘Investment Banking Awards’. Earlier this year, Renaissance Capital was named the Best in Frontier Markets by Global Finance magazine.