- A new report by P r i c e W a t e r House Coopers (PwC) has projected that traditional Assets under Management (AuM) in 12 markets across Africa will rise to around $1,098 billion by 2020, from a 2008 total of $293 billion. This represents a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of nearly 9.6 per cent. According to the report, “traditional asset management, in particular, the mutual fund industry, is expanding aggressively across Africa.
- This will largely be driven by a number of factors: economic growth and the subsequent rise in wealth will boost the demand for pensions and life insurance products, the demand for retail investment funds will consequently increase, and the widespread adoption of technology will make delivery of new products cheaper, bringing more consumers into the formal financial sector.”
- The report entitled: “Africa Asset Management 2020” examines the asset management industry across 12 African countries, which have financial markets of varying levels of development.
- The countries, which represent a sample from Northern, Eastern, Western and Southern Africa, were assessed by a range of relevant indicators in order to capture their true investment potential.
- The countries were categorised into three groups: advancing markets, promising markets, and nascent markets. In addition, the report outlines and analyses the future game changers for investment into Africa as a whole as well as addressing the impacts for these specific markets. PwC Africa Asset Management Leader, Ilse French, stated:
“As Africa has entered the 21st century, economic growth has surpassed expectations and stimulated investor interest across a broad range of asset classes. Although the fund industry in Africa is, in most countries, still developing and has much to prove, global and local asset managers are likely to become more active as the industry continues to flourish.”
- Other forecasts by the firm include that, the global rise in the volume of investable assets which has taken place over the last two or three decades is set to continue to increase in the future and investable assets are set to be significantly higher in 2020 than today; global AuM will rise to around $101.7 trillion by 2020 and a significant increase in the number of retail investors on the continent within the projected period.
- Source: New Telegraph