Private equity investments in Africa

Private equity is attracting international investors to Africa like never before, with fund after fund being launched in London to look beyond South Africa.

"We don't have to invest in Africa, and we wouldn't have invested in certain African local-currency markets without an improvement in policies over the past few years," said William Ledward, who manages a billion emerging-market fixed-income fund for Franklin Templeton Investments.

Nkosana Moyo, who is partner for Africa at Actis, a British private equity firm that invests in emerging markets, said he plans to raise a new 0 million fund for Africa in the next year.
Moyo said Actis, as an investor with a 10-year horizon, was excited by Africa's opportunities because the continent's new generation of leaders was more at ease with open global markets; the continent, moreover, was home to 20 percent of the world's proven reserves of oil and gas.