MOBILIST announces partnership with Nairobi Securities Exchange
24 September 2024, Nairobi/London. The Nairobi Securities Exchange Plc (NSE) is partnering with the UK government’s Mobilising Institutional Capital Through Listed Product Structures (MOBILIST) programme to facilitate greater investment toward sustainable development in Kenya via the listed market.
The partnership was announced this morning at an event that brought together key players in the Kenyan financial industry, regulators, investors, and current and prospective issuers to discuss opportunities to enable public market transactions that mobilise private capital towards the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
John Humphrey, His Majesty’s Trade Commissioner for Africa, delivered the keynote address during his three-day visit to Kenya.
MOBILIST provides investment capital, technical assistance and support to enable SDG-focused projects to overcome the key barriers that prevent them from listing on a stock exchange. By expanding the universe of listed instruments that institutional investors can use to invest in emerging markets such as Kenya, MOBILIST intends to unlock new sources of capital to fund sustainable growth and development in these economies.
According to the African Development Bank’s (AfDB) African Economic Outlook for 2024, the continent needs to invest at least $402 billion more per year if it aims to catch up with high-performing developing countries by 2030 and prioritise spending on key SDGs like education, energy, productivity, and infrastructure. Recent research commissioned by MOBILIST and Revego Fund Managers highlighted that, on its own, sub-Saharan Africa’s renewable energy market already represents a potential investment opportunity of $193 billion by 2031.
In Kenya, achieving the structural economic transformation that investment in renewable energy and other key sectors could stimulate will require additional investment of $12 billion annually. The AfDB has emphasised that these investment levels cannot be met without increased private-sector participation.
John Humphrey, His Majesty’s Trade Commissioner for Africa, said: “Mobilising investment solutions in Kenya are vital to economic growth as they provide a platform for Kenyan businesses to raise the capital they need to expand their operations, increase cross-border trade, and employ more Kenyans – and at the same tackle climate change and achieve critical development goals.”
Frank Mwiti, Chief Executive Officer, NSE said: “The NSE is delighted to partner with the UK government-backed MOBILIST Programme. The strategic partnership between the NSE and MOBILIST aligns with our new strategic focus aimed at enabling the NSE to play a more dynamic role in mobilising and channelling capital to sectors that have the most significant capital needs, with a special focus on sustainable development. As a market, we will continue providing a pivotal intersection connecting capital to investment-grade opportunities in Kenya for sustained economic growth.”
Ross Ferguson, who leads the MOBILIST programme at the UK Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), said: “Public markets in Kenya and other African economies hold great untapped potential to mobilise the private capital the continent urgently needs to gain ground in addressing the SDGs and the severe impact of climate change. MOBILIST is proud to partner with the NSE in building a local capital market that can give the African firms working on these challenges access to the capital they need to grow.”
MOBILIST Investment and Technical Assistance to NSE Participants
MOBILIST seeks to partner with financial institutions at the core of capital markets and will engage with and accept proposals from NSE’s network of brokers, investment banks and promoters of public offerings. While MOBILIST can only deploy equity capital, the programme can provide debt securities issuers with technical assistance funding.
Interested parties can contact [email protected] for further information and view MOBILIST’s Request for Proposal document here.
