Last week, various decision makers in government and private sectors assembled at the Namibia Institutional Investors Forum at Strand Hotel, Swakopmund, to discuss Namibia’s economic growth through alternative investments.
This two-day forum, themed ‘Harnessing Alternative Investment to Drive Economic Recovery’, welcomed close to 100 top investment professionals from Namibia and internationally. The programme focused on policymakers and regulators who have a direct impact on pension funds, insurance firms, development financial institutions, and individual investors.
Quest speakers present included; Bishop Joshua Maponga (founder and CEO of Farmers of Thought Institute), Kenneth Matomola (CEO of the Namibia Financial Institutions Supervisory Authority), Tiaan Bazuin, (CEO of Namibia Stock Exchange), Martin Inkumbi (CEO of Development Bank of Namibia), James Mnyupe (Presidential Economic Advisor) and countless more delegates from reputable companies.
Hileni Nghinaunye, Portfolio Manager at Mergence Unlisted Investment Managers (Namibia), who was also the main sponsor at this year’s event, said the forum was an informative and productive set of days.
“The presenters were relevant to this year and what it holds for us. As an asset manager, I would like to see different parties, not only focusing on the update of their careers but combat the industry’s regulatory issues at hand, to be addressed and strategised.
We should interrogate these issues and recap on the funding gap from the speaker of the Development Bank of Namibia or GIPF as an example, between the greenfield and brownfield type of transactions and the tapping in of SME financing.”
“The challenge is that the current investors, trustees, institutional investors and pension funders don’t have an appetite for that greenfield, so we need to come up with a workable model to close this gap.
The best way is to speak to an institutional investor and have trustees on stage to explain their willingness of risk taking and how far they’d run the mile to allocate capital to this type of asset class,” Nghinaunye highlighted.
Also present was Michael Ndinisa, CEO and host of MN Capital Group’s Forum, who represents an investment communication and institutional business development firm. The firm specialises in providing institutional incentives to developing companies, including front corporations, as well as government, retirement benefits, and foreign funds.
Throughout the two-day discussion, strategies were shared on how industries can work together with regulators to come up with a well managed equity SME funds.
Maponga’s presentation focussed on ensuring the economy starts updating its software, being mindful of resources and upgrading relevance to laws and policies that were created in an outdated era.
Mnyupe illustrated government plans around its green hydrogen initiatives and mentioned that Namibia has experienced a spike in investment leads, primarily in green hydrogen, with additional leads indicating interest in agriculture and tourism. This demonstrates Namibia’s development and future investment prospects, which are in line with the Sustainable Development Goals. This topic is expected to be discussed in depth at the next forum to investigate the role of investment and asset managers to focus on alternatives, with potentially higher returns as well as asset classes delivering superior returns.
The next forum will be held in Mauritius in May this year.