Opening the LSE on Wednesday, African Development Bank (AfDB) president Dr Akinwumi Adesina indicated that this marked the beginning of a “new, exciting, strategic and impactful engagement” between the bank and the stock exchange to jointly expand wealth creation in Africa and the UK.

Adesina noted that Africa was tapping into the LSE, where 110 African companies, with a market capitalisation of $197-billion, were listed by 2019.

“African economies are growing strong and the prospects for greater wealth creation are compelling,” he said.

He pointed out that 17 African countries were growing by 3% to 5% a year and 20 countries by 5% and above.

Further, six of the fastest-growing economies in the world were in Africa and foreign direct investments (FDI) in Africa grew by 11% last year, far exceeding the 4% growth in Asia, even as FDI declined by 13% globally and by 23% in developed economies.

Moreover, the Africa Continental Free Trade Area is worth $3.3-trillion, making it the largest free trade zone in the world, noted Adesina.

“It’s time to recalibrate UK–Africa trade and investment. And a good place to start on investments is on infrastructure. The continent’s unmet infrastructure demand is worth $68-billion to $108-billion a year, offering huge opportunities for global investors,” posited Adesina.

In this regard, he noted that the LSE could help to unlock considerable capital for meeting the continent’s investment opportunities.

Adesina noted that while the bank had been a close partner of the LSE, it wanted to do more to leverage institutional investors.

“With institutional investors holding £8-trillion of assets under management in the UK, and only 1% of that going to Africa, it is time to change the trend,” he emphasised.

Therefore, he welcomed the collaboration between the AfDB and the LSE to deepen the development of capital markets in Africa, and to attract UK institutional investors to Africa.

“The synthetic securitisation of $1-billion issued by the bank has attracted global institutional investors to infrastructure in Africa. The bank is also working on improving African capital markets' access to domestic and international markets’ passive investment flows,” informed Adesina.

Moreover, he noted that the bank would be working with the LSE Africa Advisory Group to attract a greater portion of the $5-trillion in global exchange-traded fund assets under management into African capital markets.

“We are excited about the recent listing of Kenya’s Acorn Holdings, the country’s first green bond, in Nairobi and the LSE in January 2020.

“The AfDB also hopes to partner with the LSE on our planned initiative to unlock dormant capital from existing fixed assets across Africa, with an estimated value of $4-trillion to $5-trillion.”