Towards the end of April, GenAfrica sparked national headlines in Kenya after announcing its financial results for the first quarter of the year, which indicated a strong capital position, especially for its money market fund, which started just in December 2022, whose sum of all current and non-current assets have grown to nearly Ksh1 billion, that is Ksh921 million, at the beginning of 2024.
After that, you might be among those asking what GenAfrica is doing in Kenya and well, here is the answer: GenAfrica is an asset manager and generally, businesses in asset management manage funds on behalf of individuals and companies, making well-timed investment decisions to grow their finances and portfolio.
When did GenAfrica start in Kenya?
GenAfrica Asset Managers entered the Kenyan financial market in 1996 but as Genesis Kenya before rebranding to GenAfrica.
At that time, it was managing roughly Ksh1 billion, which was a single offshore client fund, but with a commitment to managing its clients’ assets in the right way, as of June 2021, it said it had over $3 billion worth of investment funds in stocks, shares and bonds, commodities, equities and other financial products, both pension and non-pension funds after working with hundreds of companies, large institutional investors and individuals.
Since its inception, licensed by the Capital Markets Authority and the Retirement Benefits Authority, GenAfrica Asset Managers Limited has grown to be one of the fastest-growing and most promising mutual pension and investment providers, delivering key investment solutions for its clients through its financial services and products namely Pension Fund Management Milele Income Drawdown Fund, Wealth Management, Kivuli Fund, Scheme Training, Property Investment Advisory, Batian Property Fund and GenAfrica Unit Trust Fund that invests in low-risk securities government securities and fixed deposits with guaranteed steady returns.
Who owns GenAfrica Asset Managers Limited?
GenAfrica Asset Managers is owned by an independent investment management company called Kuramo Capital Management Limited, with offices in USA New York, Lagos in Nigeria and Nairobi, Kenya, which controls a 90.84 % share of the asset management firm.
The owner of Kuramo Capital Management Limited is Walé Adeosun, a renowned Nigerian businessman who was inducted into the New York Chapter of the National Association of Security Professionals Wall Street Hall of Fame in 2008.
Adeosun, the Chairman of the Nigeria Higher Education Foundation (NHEF), once served at former US President Barack Obama’s Advisory Council on Doing Business in Africa (PAC-DBIA).
Some of the companies that his Kuramo Capital Management has made direct investments in, aside from GenAfrica, include, in Nigeria, the depository system Central Securities Clearing System PLC, Crest Agro Products, DataGuard Document Management Limited, Green Africa Airways, biscuit manufacturer NAS Foods PLC in Ethiopia, Plantations et Huileries du Congo (PHC), the largest producer of palm oil in the DRC Democratic Republic of Congo, and financial operations and investments firms TransCentury and Sterling Capital Limited in Kenya, among others.
