English and Dutch Pension are starting to seek out undervalued African markets Drawn by high, if risky, returns, pension funds including the Old Mutual Investment Group and the Cornwall Local Authority Pension Fund are investing in African real assets and equities. Along with natural resources, investors are targeting the consumer and retail markets. Peter Guest, author of Africa's Century: Making Money on the New Frontier, notes that sub-Saharan Africa's mobile boom has created a " massive consumer opportunity," while urbanization is bringing more and more people "into contact with formal retail, meaning that the kind of investments people were used to making in shopping malls and chain restaurants in the west can yield huge returns in Africa." Speaking to AI-CIO, PPF CIO Barry Kenneth noted that pension funds "need to think about the asset allocation as it evolves over the next 15 years or so. You can’t ignore frontier area—people need to spend more time understanding these areas.” PPF is looking into potential African investments, though "no conclusions have been made." A few points to consider: unpredictable liquidity and the impacts of political volatility. “There are problems around liquidity outside the major markets in Africa, and the Arab Spring has created issues in further reducing the size of the potential universe,” Kenneth said. A few recent and pending investments: • Cornwall local authority pension fund appointed 2 managers to run a £60 million frontier market mandate • Old Mutual Investment Group is fundraising for the African Housing Fund ($250m) and the African Agriculture Fund ($150m first close). “At the moment we are talking with some big Dutch pension funds about coming in and then we have got a whole lot of South African investors,” said Rojie Kisten, head of Capital at OMIGSA. http://www.africaammagazine.com/tag/pension-funds/ • One of UK's largest corp pension funds has a watching brief on African private equity funds. • On the local front, there's less interest. The majority of South African pension funds are hesitant to invest in African funds, but the country's largest pension fund, the Government Employees Pension Fund, has earmarked 5% of its holdings for intra-continent investment.  On Trusted Insight, 70 LPs and 19 GPs are interested in Africa. Most of the LPs are from fund of funds, foundations, and family offices. 80% are bullish. References: http://www.ai-cio.com/channel/ASSET_ALLOCATION/Pension_Lifeboat_Considers_African_Investment.html www.professionalpensions.com/professional-pensions/feature/2293712/african-investment-the-next-space-for-schemes http://www.menafm.com/tag/cornwall-county-council-pension-fund/ http://www.africaammagazine.com/tag/pension-funds/ http://www.bdlive.co.za/business/financial/2013/11/06/sa-pension-funds-slow-to-invest-in-africa https://www.thetrustedinsight.com/tag/africa/#investors