Africa investor ("Ai"), an international investment and communications group, today announced the launch of its online infrastructure co-investment portal AIAssetX, following extensive consultations with local and international asset owners and their trustees, who ranked identifying qualifying infrastructure investment partners and investable projects, as the single biggest challenge for domestic and global institutional investors seeking to allocate to African infrastructure as an investable asset class.
AiAssetX is Africa investors' (Ai) online marketplace, designed to profile project and infrastructure investment opportunities and securely connect accredited domestic and international asset owners and institutional infrastructure investors with infrastructure project developers and infrastructure fund and investment managers working in Africa. Ai AssetX aggregates the capital introduction and capital raising process for sell side participants and harmonizes asset owners strategies, to ensure they can efficiently engage with project developers and fund managers who have the requisite track record and expertise to enable them to deploy capital and discharge their fiduciary responsibilities in a predictable and measurable fashion.
Ai AssetX is a smarter, easier and cheaper way to profile infrastructure investment opportunities and connect project owners and investment managers to institutional investors. It is a practical collaboration platform which leverages the long-term investment horizon of public financial investors, such as sovereign wealth funds and pension funds, to invest in both direct investments and fund and investment manager strategies that meet asset owners' mandates and investment criteria.
The Ai AssetX Infrastructure Co-Investment web portal, was formally unveiled at the Ai Development Finance – Institutional Investor Roundtable, held in partnership with the African Development Bank and NEPAD, at the World Bank annual Meetings, during the IGD Frontier 100 Forum. The Ai Development Finance – Institutional Investor Roundtable convened global and Africa-focused institutional investors (pension and sovereign funds), DFI heads and African Ministers of Finance, to engage in a dialogue on institutional investment in infrastructure.
Hubert Danso, CEO & Vice Chairman, Africa investor said, Ai AssetX was inspired by the Ai Sovereign Wealth and Pension Fund Leaders Forum, to assist Asset Owners leverage Ai's franchise, collaborative technology solutions, project origination network and vast access to pools of domestic and global pension and sovereign wealth fund capital seeking African infrastructure investment opportunities.
AiAssetX benefits from the support of Ai Fiduciary Ratings, whose role is to measure trust and fiduciary risk, by probing the inner workings of investment managers and project developers on the platform. This incorporates the investment criteria and manager selection imperatives from the asset owners using the platform, which also form the Ai Ratings Advisory Committee. The rating assesses the quality of governance, management and the systems put in place to measure the capability of the firm to meet its fiduciary obligations. An Ai Rating uniquely empowers asset owners and managers of capital, such as pension and sovereign wealth funds and reinsurance firms, in their dealings with infrastructure funds, investment managers and project developers to ensure they receive the service they and their trustees have a right to expect.
For more information on AiAssetX, contact Tracy Vance: tracy.vance@africainvestor.com or +27 11 783 2431.
About AiAssetX - www.AiAssetX.com
AiAssetX is Africa investors (Ai) online infrastructure co-investment platform designed to securely connect accredited domestic and international asset owners and aggregate the capital introduction and capital raising process for infrastructure projects and funds working in Africa. Ai AssetX harmonizes asset owners strategies, to ensure they can efficiently engage with managers and project developers who have the requisite track record and expertise to enable them to deploy capital and discharge their fiduciary responsibilities in a streamlined fashion.
About Africa investor (Ai) - www.africainvestor.com
Africa investor is a specialist institutional investment and communications group, advising institutional investors, pension funds, sovereign funds, governments, international organisations and businesses on strategies for capital market and foreign direct and infarstrcuture co-investments in Africa. Ai's media division publishes Ai magazine, the leading international newsstand magazine for Africa's investment decision makers; maintains the Ai 40 Investors' Index, hosts the Ai CEO Institutional Investment Summit & Awards and the Ai CEO Infrastructure Investment Summit & Awards, among other events. Operating at the intersection of institutional investors, business, government, international organisations and the media, Ai group has a network of clients across Africa and globally.
About the Ai African Sovereign Wealth And Pension Fund Leaders Forum – www.aiswpff.com, www.aiemf.com)
The Ai African Sovereign Wealth and Pension Fund Forum (ASWPFF) is a high-level platform for African Sovereign Wealth and Pension Fund (SWF & PF) leaders to network and share best practices on key issues related to improving the investment environment for long term intra-African investment. The Forum fosters and facilitates inbound co-investments in the continent's financial markets, together with Northern Hemisphere asset owners and supranational institutions. The ASWPFF builds on a series of Ai-led consultations and events for African SWF & PF leaders to assess and determine existing barriers to investment in Africa – including non-listed assets such as infrastructure. The Forum recently launched the Ai Emerging Managers Forum (www.aiemf.com), an African led capacity building and networking platform to connect African and US asset owners and emerging investment and private equity managers in Africa and the US.
