Renaissance Capital, the Russian investment bank, is in "advanced negotiations" to buy brokerages in "five or six" African countries, according to its co-founder and chief executive. Stephen Jennings, known as the Kiwi oligarch, expects the deals to be completed within the next few months and says they should reinforce the bank's ambition to "dominate trading flows on the continent".
The bank, which is half owned by Mikhail Prokhorov, a Russian billionaire, has already built up a substantial African presence since it moved into the region three years ago, with offices in Nigeria, Kenya, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Ghana.
In 2009 it was one of the most active dealmakers on the continent, executing 18 transactions in 10 countries. Last month it opened in South Africa and recruited Clifford Sacks, then a senior banker at Merrill Lynch, to head up the operation.
"Call us crazy, but when we look at Africa we believe this will be the fastest growing part of the world," said Jennings. "We believe that the highest investment returns . . . will be from this part of the world over the next 20 years." Jennings, who co-headed Credit Suisse First Boston's investment banking operations in Russia in the early 1990s, is particularly optimistic about the prospects of Nigeria.
"We see Nigeria as a new Russia or Brazil in terms of the size you can get to. We wouldn't be shocked to see [trading volumes] at the rate they have done in Russia," he said. Renaissance already has the largest share of the equity trading in Nigeria and Kenya. The bank's optimism over Africa is underpinned as much by growth in consumer sectors such as telecommunications and financial services as by the region's oil, gas and mineral wealth, all of which have made it hugely attractive to resource hungry China, India and Brazil.
"The commodity thing is interesting, but we think this is a more Asian-style convergence play - a very organic, bottom-up modernisation process," he said.
Russian bank nears brokerages deals in push to dominate Africa (http://www.businessdayonline.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=9659:russian-bank-nears-brokerages-deals-in-push-to-dominate-africa-&catid=85:national&Itemid=340)
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