U.S. fund manager Pecora Capital announced on Tuesday that it will help Nigeria raise over $2 billion over the next 18 months for Nigerian infrastructure projects.
“As a long-term investor we see a time of crisis as an opportunity,” Aaron Smith, Managing Director of Pecora, told Reuters. He expected the fund to achieve returns of 25 percent a year over its 7-year lifespan.
Surprised at his optimism in investing in Nigeria at a time when foreign investors are adamant he explained as follows;
“I understand that is a concern and we’ve thought about it but we definitely don’t foresee over the timeframe we’ve set out that we’ll have any problems getting money out of the country,” Smith said.
“The fundamentals and demographics in Nigeria, in terms of population, in terms of infrastructure deficits, all offer huge opportunity and the availability of high returns.”
According to Reuters, Smith said areas of possible investment included agriculture, telecommunications and transport as the fund hopes to take advantage of the huge demand for improved infrastructure in a country of around 190 million people. The Nigerian fund will be based in the Cayman Islands and hopes to attract investment from the U.S., Asia and Europe.
We also decided to dig into Pecora with a view to finding out who they are and what they do. Here is what we got so far;
- Pecora Capital LLC is a global macro investment management firm domiciled and regulated in the United States
- It got the name from Ferdinand Pecora, a Sicilian immigrant to New York who overcame enormous odds to become one of the most important regulators in financial history. The Pecora Commission led to extensive regulatory reforms in the aftermath of the Great Depression promoting a secure and competitive financial sector.
- The company was founded in 2012 and listed as a public company.
- The company also has between 10 – 12 employees.
- The company’s CEO is Aaron Smith is also the founder of Pecora Capital. He oversees the company’s global business strategy and research activities for the development of proprietary trading technologies.
- He began his career on Wall Street working in the Private Client Group at Morgan Stanley’s 2 World Trade Center offices.
- He also became a licensed financial advisor in Singapore in 2008 and ran the Asian arm of the business, carrying on the duties of Chief Executive Officer of Superfund Financial (Singapore) Pte Ltd.
- Aaron also appears to be quite religious as he is a member of the International Protestant Church of Zurich, where he is blessed to teach Sunday school.
- The company also seems to have an affiliation with Switzerland as two of its other top executives, William Adams and Jeff Harpur both have backgrounds in Switzerland
- The company also has an address and phones numbers are also similarly Gehrenstrasse 18, 8810 Horgen, Switzerland and +41 76 373 7955.
- US Address is 21218 St. Andrews Boulevard #408 Boca Raton, FL33433, USA and email is [email protected]
- The company’s auditors are KPMG
- Pecora is a privately-owned firm and does not disclose its assets under management or previous performance
- The company has the following names as registered owners
Listed Principal Name Title 10% or More
Financial InterestCHRISTIAN JOSEF BAHA OWNER ONLY YES BEBI HOLDINGS LLC YES THOMAS PASTUREL OWNER ONLY YES AARON L SMITH - You can watch a video of the CEO speak in one of his TV appearances.
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