The investment landscape
globally has changed and
Africa is no exception.
So I think the world has
actually gone through a lot
of challenges, especially from
COVID, where you saw most
of the world shrink in terms of
investment in different
infrastructure, in different growth.
Africa has actually had the
toughest of the lot.
Things have changed.
And you see what's happened
now that the whole world is
gravitated towards more social,
environmental and governance.
So the ESG is a new buzzword
and this has actually shifted
the investment landscape
in Africa.
And if you know, Africa is a
resource heavy continent where
there needs to be constant
investments in resources in
order to drive a lot of the
infrastructure growth and
social, some social challenges.
So what has happened is Africa
is being forced to respond to
the ESG challenges globally.
Africa has actually
reacted nicely.
I think there has been debts
of liquidity sources.
So we are not to say that
things like mining, oil and gas,
they've seen a little bit of
pushback on those investments.
But Africa has actually reacted
in the balance where we know
that in order to continue to
solve the 'S' in the ESG,
we need to continue to make
those investments in those
resources, because the
continent actually does
derive all the revenue sources
to help the continent grow.
What RMB is doing is creating
the balance and saying,
how do we continue to support
Africa, for Africa to grow?
Whereas being conscious of
the future that these are the
challenges that we're going
to continue to face.
We've seen continued
investments in a lot of this
resources and mining,
but a little bit cleaner.
So getting to the clean
coal technology, we create
a balance and say how do
we transition from what
we're used to, to where we
want to get to.
So you talk about private
power grid renewables.
You also talk of trying to make
sure that even companies that
we support across the
continent actually has a
clear transition plan.
So how do you make it a
little bit more balanced.
Where a lot of the
international investors have
actually tried to pull out,
RMB has been a big supporter
of a lot of the governments,
a lot of the companies.
We continue to work with our
clients in these transitions.
We continue to work with them
to make sure that we kind of
meet the same goals where
RMB also wants to create a more
sustainable financing needs for
Africa in the future.
RMB is proudly Africa.
We're very invested in
ensuring that we're part of
the growth story in Africa.
We believe that in order to
continue to grow as an
institution, we need to
continue to make the investments
across the continent.
So RMB, we pride ourselves
that we have a deal footprint
that covers the continent.
But we're particular about how
we push Africa's growth story.
We've been successful in
markets like Nigeria, in most
of the SADC regions, Bots,
Namibia and co.
But we're looking to see how
we expand our presence in
places like East Africa,
Western Africa, the likes of Ghana.
Our major focus has always
been to be invested in
what drives Africa.
We look into how to develop a
sovereign strategy where we
support African governments
in actually harmonising plans
to actually see continued
investments in infrastructure.
What RMB is doing now is
working with a lot of
governments to make sure
that we can continue to fund
their budgets towards growing
the continent and especially
solving a lot of the social
issues that wedo have.
And we we've had a couple
of successes in that regard.
What RMB is doing, the plan
is actually to fill the void that
has actually been left by a
little bit of the pull out from
a lot of the Western
institutions that would
traditionally be creating
this support.
We pride ourselves that a
lot of these transactions were
done during the COVID era.
So if you look at
transactions like supporting
the Bank of Industry in Nigeria,
who is one of the critical
growth engines in driving
manufacturing and coal.
We raised close to about $2bn
for the Bank of Industry to
be banking partners.
And this is a testament that
even in a COVID period, we
were able to continue
these challenges.
We've also supported all
our clients, we've also
supported the Ghanaian
government in one of their
bonds during the COVID
period as well.
But over and above, we
supported the corporates.
If you look we've had successes
with MTN across the continent.
We helped them with recent
liquidity raising in Nigeria.
We've done things with them in
other parts of the continent.
And we also continue to
follow our clients
in different footprints.
We've had some successes
with some of our clients in
North Africa, where it's not
our traditional footprint.
But this is a testament showing
how we have actually evolved
as an institution while
supporting our clients.
I'm very passionate about Africa.
Africa has always been
part of my DNA.
I've always been driven to
drive growth in Africa.
So my first job was to come
back to the continent.
And I've remained here for
the last 15 years.