Private Markets Investing

The Rise of African Family Offices! “Africa doesn’t need more venture capital — it needs more patient family capital.” For too long, Africa’s investment narrative has been dominated by venture capital — chasing quick exits, high returns, and fast growth. But Africa’s greatest opportunities aren’t found in short-term plays. They’re built through patient, purpose-driven capital that stays long enough to shape industries, empower entrepreneurs, and create generational impact. 💼 VC vs Family-Office Capital Venture Capital: ⚡ Short-term, exit-driven, milestone obsessed. 💸 External LPs, 5-10 year horizons, rapid scaling. Family Offices: 🌍 Long-term, values-driven, intergenerational. 🏗 Built for stewardship, legacy, and real-world impact. In Africa, this shift matters — because building industries like energy, agriculture, healthcare, education, and infrastructure takes decades, not funding rounds. 🧭 Fio Capital’s Approach At Fio Capital, we’ve adopted a buy-and-hold philosophy. We invest patient family capital into core impact industries — creating jobs, driving inclusion, and building sustainable African enterprises. We don’t just invest in Africa. We invest with Africa — alongside founders and families who share a vision of conscious, generational wealth creation. 🌱 From Wealth Preservation to Impact Creation A mature family office isn’t just about protecting assets — it’s about preserving purpose. Wealth without wisdom fades. Stewardship ensures legacy. Africa’s next generation of family offices is redefining success — not in terms of ROI alone, but in return on impact, return on integrity, and return on community. 🏆 5 African Family Offices to Watch 1️⃣ Heirs Holdings (Nigeria) — Tony Elumelu’s family office driving investments in power, finance, and healthcare. 2️⃣ Tengen Family Office (Nigeria) — founded by Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede & Herbert Wigwe, focused on long-term value creation. 3️⃣ Oppenheimer Generations (South Africa) — Nicky & Jonathan Oppenheimer’s vehicle, investing in sustainability and African industry. 4️⃣ Dangote Family Office (Nigeria) — Aliko Dangote’s global expansion vehicle for African industrial growth. 5️⃣ Mary Oppenheimer Daughters (South Africa / UK) — diversified investments across private equity and real assets. Do you believe family offices should take a more active role in building Africa’s industries — beyond just preserving wealth? 👉 Comment your view below — or tag a family-office leader shaping the continent’s next chapter.

𝗠𝗶𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗶𝘀 𝗵𝗼𝘁 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗮 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘀𝗼𝗻 - 𝗶𝘁’𝘀 𝗯𝗲𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗿𝗲𝗱𝗲𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗲𝗱. Mining has long sat in the background of capital markets. Often lumped in with the broader commodity markets and seen as slow, capital-intensive, and lacking technological progression. Important, but not investable. Strategic, but stagnant. Well, that narrative is breaking. Critical minerals, while always seen as national security assets, have ascended to a top national priority. Electrification, AI infrastructure, and defense supply chains are all colliding with a system that historically took 10+ years to deliver a new mine - if delivered at all. Meanwhile, discovery rates are collapsing while permitting timelines are stretching, further compounding capital risk. Due to this growing demand gap and market tailwinds, we spent the last few months mapping where the real bottlenecks and areas of venture-scale opportunity across the mining value chain sit, touching on: ⛏️ Exploration and feasibility - the binding constraints 🤖 Use of AI - sensing are collapsing the drill → data → decision loop ⏱️ Time-to-value matters - often more than technical novelty 💰 Moving multiples - how tech can move assets from “mining multiples” to “growth industrial” outcomes 📊 Business model innovation - why royalty-like, equity-linked models may matter as much as the tech itself The result is a framework for evaluating mining-tech opportunities via capital intensity vs. time-to-value, with a focus on cycle-time compression, risk reduction, and scalable value capture. And the best part? This isn’t just theory, we’re already seeing signals in OEM offtake behavior, upstream verticalization, and a new generation of founders treating mining as a potentially data-rich industry ripe for transformation. If you’re building, investing in, or navigating mining, minerals, or industrial AI — give it a read and let’s compare notes! As they say these days, the [VCs] yearn for the mines ⛏️ [Link to full piece in comments, also drop a comment if you want the spreadsheet backup to the market map] CC: Cathay Innovation, Simon Wu, Elijah Yi, Rose Yuan, Jaclyn Hartnett, Daniela Caserotto Leibert #Mining #CriticalMinerals #IndustrialTech #AI #EnergyTransition #VentureCapital #Reindustrialization

Belief contagion: The real story behind the rise of alternatives 🐑 U.S. public pensions didn’t triple their allocations to alternatives because of performance. They did it because their consultants changed their minds. Together. From 2001 to 2021, allocations to private equity, real estate, and hedge funds rose from 14% to 39% of risky assets. A Stanford University/Harvard University paper from 2024 by Begenau, Liang, Siriwardane argues this wasn’t about realized returns or liquidity needs. It was belief-driven. The authors match pension portfolios with consultants’ capital market assumptions — the forward-looking “alphas” that drive models. Post-GFC, consultants’ expected alpha for private equity jumped +88bps vs. public equities…with no change in realized performance. Then came belief contagion: One consultant raises expected returns. Peers follow. Allocators rebalance. Consensus hardens. The narrative becomes self-reinforcing. As Mordecai Kurz warned, correlated beliefs can move markets as powerfully as fundamentals. And Andrei Shleifer’s behavioral lens fits perfectly: extrapolate good news, ignore tail risk, cluster thinking. The result? Portfolios that look diversified — but may be a shared bet on shared assumptions. As Verdad Advisers’ Dan Rasmussen concludes: “In short, the ‘rise of alternatives’ is not only a structural trend. It is a story of belief coordination. Consultants changed their minds, together. Institutions followed, together. And now we live in the portfolio equilibrium their expectations built.” (+++Opinions are my own. Not investment advice. Do your own research.+++) 👋 Follow me for my daily investing nuggets, musings on markets, and hilarious investing memes. 💸

Earlier this week, Microsoft shared that we reached our milestone of matching 100% of our annual global electricity consumption with renewable energy. Today, I'm sharing what global progress looks like at a local level. Partnerships are the engine of progress. We work closely with renewable energy developers around the world to help bring new clean power onto the grid. One of the most important tools we use to do this is a Power Purchase Agreement, or PPA. A PPA is a long-term agreement where an organization like Microsoft commits to buying electricity from a renewable energy project at a set price. For us, this provides a predictable source of clean energy. For the energy developer, it provides long-term revenue they can count on. That reliable revenue also helps developers secure additional financing to build new projects, like solar energy, that might not otherwise get built. In this way, PPAs don’t just buy clean power, they help expand new renewable energy capacity. Through these agreements, we’ve contracted 40 gigawatts of renewable energy to date. Each PPA is different, shaped by local geography, regulations, and community priorities. In our latest Source blog, we’re highlighting six examples of these partnerships, from a solar project in Illinois that supports agricultural programs and job training for students, to a women‑run wind farm in rural Brazil. Read more about these partnerships and the communities they support: https://lnkd.in/gmHvrusZ

The biggest mistake investors make? Treating Africa like a country instead of 54 distinct markets. Afridigest’s latest map shows a clear divide: countries with massive Economic Potential (bottom-right) vs. those with actual Investment Attractiveness (top-right). But the UK-India-Africa Investment Corridor is currently building the bridge to close that gap. Here’s how the landscape is shifting in 2026:  ➡️ Nigeria’s Efficiency Play 🇳🇬: The massive £746M UKEF-backed port deal isn't just about ships; it’s about moving Nigeria up the Y-axis by slashing the logistics tax that kills PE exits. ➡️ Uganda’s Value Jump 🇺🇬: Already high on Investment Attractiveness, Uganda is the "darling" of the new UK-India trilateral. With UK FDI stock in-country jumping nearly 90%, we’re seeing a shift from raw exports to high-value pharma and agro-processing. ➡️ The Ghana/West Africa Halo 🇬🇭: Total trade with Ghana has hit £1.5B, but the real story is the UK–West Africa Digital Corridor. It’s tackling the $7B trade finance gap, making the "Emerging 9" much safer for institutional capital. The "Sleeping Giants" like Ethiopia and Tanzania (bottom-right) are the real targets for 2027. As the UK ramps up regional export finance capacity to £3B+, we’re moving away from speculative growth toward operational efficiency. Which of the Emerging 9 do you think breaks into the Top Tier 6 first? 

Debt & Equity = Balance (true for the public market & true in the private market) WSJ reported that Private Equity funds face mounting/prolonged exits. In contrast, private credit offers a more deterministic return profile given contractual coupon payments, with amortization, and defined maturity dates, which delivers relatively consistent DPI (Distributions to Paid-In), IRR and MOIC calculations. Top-quartile PE managers will distinguish themselves from the crowd as they will deliver strong returns that is truly value-added. Those who are not performing as well will seek extensions, multi-asset continuation vehicles, and fee drag until the “frozen M&A environment” re-opens. The WSJ article highlights $668B stuck in aging PE funds (some now lasting 15 years), whereas direct lenders can pay dividends, recycle capital, or return the capital to their investors as loans mature or prepay. The efficiency and more predictable cash flows of Private Credit is crucial for LPs managing duration and liquidity. PE investors (including pensions and insurance companies) are re-allocating a portion of their alternative investment portfolio towards private credit due this predictable cash flows, lower volatility, and shorter duration. The critical point to realize is that Private Equity and Private Credit work together, it is the perfect balance to optimize your diversified portfolio: Private Equity provides upside through capital appreciation and operational value creation, while Private Credit delivers steady income, downside protection, and predictable cash flows. Together, they complement each other—equity drives growth, credit provides stability—creating a resilient, all-weather private markets allocation for institutional investors. Manager selection is critical in private markets, as top-quartile managers consistently drive most of the value creation. In both private equity and credit, dispersion is wide—making access to proven managers the key determinant of returns.

For the first time in venture history, three distinct channels share the liquidity burden roughly equally. A decade ago, secondaries barely registered. They accounted for roughly 3% of exit value in 2015. Today they claim 31% : nearly $95b in the trailing twelve months. The shift accelerated after 2021’s IPO bonanza. When public markets closed their doors in 2022, investors found alternative routes. Secondaries absorbed demand that would have flowed to traditional exits. When Goldman Sachs acquired Industry Ventures, the transaction signaled secondaries have arrived. Morgan Stanley followed with EquityZen, then Charles Schwab announced its acquisition of Forge Global. Wall Street recognized the structural change before most of venture did. This matters for founders & investors. When IPOs dominated exits, fund models assumed a small number of public offerings would generate the bulk of returns. Now liquidity arrives through multiple doors. A founder might sell secondary shares to patient capital while the company remains private. A GP might move positions through continuation vehicles. An LP might trade fund stakes on an increasingly liquid secondary market. The 830 unicorns holding $3.9t in aggregate post-money valuation cannot all exit through IPOs. The math doesn’t work. At 2025’s pace of 48 VC-backed IPOs, clearing the unicorn backlog would take seventeen years. Secondaries provide a release valve that traditional exits cannot. Companies like OpenAI have embraced this reality, running employee tender offers while voiding unauthorized secondary transfers. The largest private companies now manage their own liquidity programs rather than waiting for public markets. Today, secondary liquidity concentrates in the top 20 names. SpaceX, Stripe, OpenAI. For the founder of company #50, the secondary market remains largely theoretical. For secondaries to succeed as a broad asset class, buyers must underwrite positions in companies without household recognition. As the market grows, this coverage gap becomes opportunity. For LPs starved of distributions since 2022, the expansion of secondary channels offers hope. The $169b in cumulative negative net cash flows needs somewhere to go. More exit paths mean more opportunities to return capital. When a Series B employee asks about liquidity today, the answer isn’t “wait for the IPO.” It’s “we’re planning a tender offer next year.” A decade ago, secondaries were a footnote. Now they’re infrastructure. Liquidity flows where it can, not where tradition suggests it should.

With public equity and fixed income markets in turmoil in recent weeks the traditional 60:40 portfolio model has again been challenged. There's little doubt uncertainty will pervade these markets for the foreseeable future. Therefore it is timely to release further research on the beneficial portfolio characteristics of private market assets. In this paper "Optimising private market asset allocations" we examine the integration of this asset class within traditional asset allocation strategies to  assess performance impacts across investor risk profiles. We believe that including private market assets can significantly enhance portfolio returns for investors who adopt a risk-based utility-maximising strategy in portfolio construction. Additionally, we find that unlisted infrastructure has the most potential of the private market assets considered to improve portfolio Sharpe ratios, especially for ‘Defensive’ and ‘Balanced’ investors. Our research applies a utility maximisation framework which facilitates risk appetite aware optimisation to tailor portfolios to match specific investor risk preferences and lifecycle stages. A novel two-stage returns unsmoothing approach is used to more accurately estimate true private market return volatility. We show that even after returns unsmoothing, private markets can significantly enhance portfolio outcomes. This study finds that defensive investors benefit from allocations  to infrastructure and private credit, achieving lower volatility and higher returns. Balanced investors see similar advantages with  a stable allocation to infrastructure, while growth investors lean towards private equity for higher risk-reward profiles. This analysis adds further weight to our assertion that private market assets have a material role to play in optimising investor portfolios. With IFM Investors Economics & research Frans van den Bogaerde, CFA and Christopher Skondreas #investment #assetallocation #risk #privatemarkets #portfolioconstruction

The decision to go public is one of the most critical crossroads for any company—and it’s not as straightforward as it used to be. Experts like Bill Gurley often champion the benefits of IPOs: cheaper capital, increased accountability, and the discipline that comes with operating under public scrutiny. And he’s not wrong—when a company scales, that accountability can push it toward being a healthier, more sustainable business. But the landscape has shifted. In 2023, there were 154 IPOs on the US stock market, compared to 181 in 2022. Both were significantly lower than the record-breaking 1,035 IPOs in 2021. Many companies that seemed unstoppable a few years ago now fall short of the benchmarks expected by public markets. Investors are hesitant to bet on high-risk startups when they can back established players like NVIDIA or Amazon, still posting double-digit growth. And then there’s the founder mindset. The old playbook said IPOs were the ultimate flex. Now, autonomy is the goal. Founders are asking, “Why hand over control when private markets can give me the cash I need without the headaches?” Liquidity options in private markets have leveled up, and many companies are staying private longer, dodging the scrutiny and rollercoaster ride of going public. That said, it’s not all smooth sailing. Some companies get stuck in messy deals to avoid down rounds, which makes going public later even more complicated. Sure, players like SpaceX and Stripe are thriving, but plenty of others are stuck in no man’s land—neither crushing it privately nor ready to IPO. The reality? There’s no universal playbook. For some, the public markets bring the discipline and access they need to hit the next level. For others, staying private keeps their autonomy intact and simplifies their path forward. The real question isn’t just “When should we go public?”—it’s “Why does it make sense for us?” And that depends entirely on your company.

Private Markets: Diversified or Just Different? Everyone says the same thing when they allocate to alternatives: “We’re adding diversification.” But are they? Let’s get specific. If you’re adding private equity or venture capital to your portfolio, what are you actually getting? According to the correlation data (Figure 2.1), not as much as you think. Private equity—especially buyout and growth—is highly correlated to public equities and the traditional 60/40 portfolio. In fact, in terms of correlation alone, it sits closer to stocks than many realize. Same with VC. The earlier the stage, the better the diversification. But once you hit expansion or late-stage, the numbers start to converge with public markets. So what’s the implication? It means a lot of investors are building portfolios that look diversified on the surface—but under stress, they start to move together. That’s not protection. That’s correlation risk hidden behind complexity. Now let’s flip it. Real assets—especially infrastructure equity, core real estate, and natural resources—show low or even negative correlation to public benchmarks. They’re not just different in label; they behave differently. Especially in down markets. If you want diversification that shows up when it matters, that’s where you look. But that’s not what most portfolios are doing. They’re overweight private equity. Overexposed to the same earnings base across strategies. And under-allocated to the real diversifiers. That’s not an optimization issue. That’s a definition problem. Because diversification isn’t just about holding more funds. It’s about holding the right mix of risk drivers. It’s about understanding correlation across regimes—not just in the averages. So next time you adjust your private markets allocation, don’t ask: “How much is in alternatives?” Ask: “Do these assets really behave differently when it counts?” If they don’t, you’re not diversified. You’re just allocating noise. For more see our Nomura CIO Corner: https://lnkd.in/e4TCax_g #PrivateMarkets #Diversification #AssetAllocation #PortfolioRisk #CIOInsights