04 April 2016, Lagos—The Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA), managers of Nigeria’s Sovereign Wealth Funds, said it generated N26.3 billion income in 2015, a 67 per cent increase over N15.77 billion total comprehensive income declared in the previous year.
The fund’s total assets for the period grew by 20 per cent to N213.66 billion, while its investment income stood at N5.8 billion during the one year period.
According to the agency in a statement, $250 million of additional capital was approved for allocation to it in 2015.
It added that the fund would be invested within the new fiscal year using the existing deployment ratio of 40 per cent in infrastructure fund, 40 per cent in future generations fund and 20 per cent in stabilisation fund.
The agency disclosed that it on-boarded five private equity (PE) fund managers during the year, adding that four of the PEs were Nigerian-based, thereby bringing its total commitments to PE fund managers to 24.
Within the year, it also strengthened its infrastructure intervention framework through co-investments collaborations with other institutional investors.
Commenting, Mr. Uche Orji, MD/CEO, NSIA, said despite the harsh and volatile market environment in 2015, which saw many significant endowments and SWFs suffering losses, NSIA maintained a flat absolute performance, thus protecting its capital.
He said: “The NSIA made fewer, but more strategic investments in 2015. More importantly, NSIA has invested in various private equity investment funds to tap into the high-growth sectors across Sub-Saharan Africa.
“These represent NSIA’s commitment to invest in alternative assets that offer superior performance and are less correlated to broader public equity market volatility.
“The 2015 fiscal year was characterized by high volatility and global market uncertainty. Currency turmoil, dwindling oil prices and decelerating growth across markets created a difficult investment environment for the Authority. Nonetheless, the overall results were positive.”
- Vanguard