Investor Updates: 21 October 2022

Nigeria, Ghana push for a regional capital markets integration

Highlights

• The Director General of Nigeria’s Securities and Exchange Commission, Lamido Yuguda, this week reiterated the need to create an enabling environment for cross-border securities transactions across West African capital markets.
• Yuguda spoke during a meeting with his Ghanaian counterpart in Accra, where they met to discuss the integration of all capital markets jurisdictions in the ECOWAS region.
• In 2013, the West African Capital Markets Integration Council (WACMIC) was inaugurated as the governing body for the integration of West African capital markets but progress has reportedly been stalled by the Francophone countries in the region.

Source: Nairametrics

Our Takeaway

Needless to say that West Africa, and the continent at large, stand to gain a lot from the potential regional capital markets, which would in no small measure deepen the capital pool available to both private and public sector players through the cross-border listing, issuance, and trading of financial securities across the region. However, none of these can be achieved without the readiness of all concerned—member states of ECOWAS. Meanwhile, Ghana and Nigeria, which both have the largest markets in West Africa, have decided to go on with the integration process with the hope their counterparts will join in the near future.

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Nigerian fintech Moove raises $17m debt to scale its operations

Highlights

• Moove, a mobility fintech and Uber’s largest vehicle supply partner in EMEA has raised $17 million from Emso Asset Management to expand in the UK, after launching there in August.
• Founded by British-born Nigerian entrepreneurs Ladi Delano and Jide Odunsi, Moove launched in Nigeria in 2020 to democratize access to vehicle ownership and now operates in nine markets across Africa and India.
• The startup offers a 100% EV rent-to-buy model that provides mobility entrepreneurs access to new zero-emissions vehicles for a flat weekly fee. The new funding will enable it to scale up to 10,000 vehicles in London by 2025.

Source: TechNext

Our Takeaway

In Africa, the market opportunity for vehicle financing is enormous. Despite having a population of more than 1 billion people, 43% of them urban dwellers, the continent recorded less than 1 million total new vehicle sales in 2019, a far cry compared to 17 million in the U.S. alone. In London, however, Moove has an opportunity to become the largest EV partner on Uber’s platform, which already has over 7,000 EVs under its electrification efforts, as it progresses towards its goal of becoming an all-electric platform in the capital by 2025.

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South Africa’s Primera joins MTN and Nedbank in the metaverse

Highlights

• South African media company Primedia, which offers outdoor advertising via billboards to clients, has purchased land in Africarare’s Ubuntuland metaverse.
• The move is in line with the group’s strategy of entering new spaces, diversifying its content offerings, and presenting advertisers with new and innovative platforms for maximum reach to forward-thinking audiences.
• By entering Ubuntuland, Primedia plans to create more meaningful engagement and connection with its audience.

Source: TechCabal

Our Takeaway

Africarare is Africa’s first metaverse and houses settlers such as MTN and Nedbank, which purchased land in the metaverse in February and September, respectively. It is highly sought-after by companies and individuals who wish to capitalize on the multiple opportunities presented by the metaverse. Meanwhile, Primera becomes the latest South African company to make a play in web 3.0 technologies, doing little to clear doubts that linger over the potential of Africans to participate in the “metaverse”.