Africa’s Investment Opportunity Is Bigger Than Wall Street Realizes

Remy Blaire: Welcome to FINTECH.TV. Global capital allocators gathering in New York City for Bullish Africa 2026 alongside the UNGA.

This does come at a time when emerging capital market opportunities are in the spotlight, and as financial infrastructure expands, local innovators are bridging the gap between African enterprises and global capital.

From pioneering real-time market intelligence to launching Kenya's first-ever locally domiciled banking ETF on the Nairobi Securities Exchange.

Joining us here on set at the New York Stock Exchange to discuss capital flows, as well as African financial innovation and market liquidity, is Andrew Barden, Co-Founder and President of Wall Street Africa and The Kenyan Wall Street.

Great to have you here. Thank you so much for joining me.

Andrew Barden: Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure.

Remy Blaire: Well, there have been so many events taking place this week alongside the UNGA, but tell us about this Bullish Africa event and also about the institutional demand that is taking place right now.

Andrew Barden: Absolutely. So Africa, when it comes to global investing and global business, often gets overlooked.

And so what we had decided with the Bullish Africa brand is, how do we tell the story of the future of Africa, the trajectory of the continent?

You know, when you look at New York, many things have been developed. Many things are in place.

You know, even from a financial technology perspective, you're managing the flows. You have the systems set up. You know, everything is well integrated.

But when it comes to Africa, you know, I have a friend of mine who often says payments are 1% built in Africa.

You know, so that leaves 99% of opportunity to grow and to build upon.

So that's kind of what we were seeing.

So we said, let's bring these conversations of, you know, Africa is ready for business, is ready for investment.

It is serious about business and investment, and it wants to move forward and move in a productive way in partnership with global firms.

So we've been attending the UNGA for many years, and we had said, you know, there's a lot of events on Africa, but they're often focused on sustainability or politics or something else.

We said, you know, where's the business leaders-focused event for Africa?

So we decided to start one ourselves.

Remy Blaire: And you mentioned the opportunities that are out there, but we have to keep in mind that when we're looking at Africa, just as when we look at the United States of America, we're talking about a massive landscape here.

So where do you see the opportunities, and also what are the leaders saying right now?

Andrew Barden: Yeah. So when it comes to the continent, I mean, here in a few years, 40% of the world's youth are going to be African.

You know, much of the world's talent in the future is going to be coming from Africa.

So, you know, part of the conversation is a little bit, you know, getting ahead of the trend as well.

But, you know, when it comes to what leaders are saying, of course, leaders are always, you know, selling their own countries and selling what the opportunities are.

But there are some very serious ones who have done a lot of work.

I know President Ruto in the Republic of Kenya has done a tremendous amount of work in bringing in international investment.

They just had the American Chamber of Commerce Business Summit a few weeks ago back in Nairobi, and they announced, I don't recall the figure, but a number of different investments from the likes of Microsoft and others.

You know, very big, top-tier global firms coming in.

And you also have the Dangote Refinery.

You know, Dangote Refinery is a very big firm from Nigeria. They just IPO'd, actually, on the Nigerian Exchange about maybe not even a week ago.

And so there's just so much potential and so much room to grow.

But what you said, too, you know, about the size of the markets in the U.S., that's true. That's true.

So you have to also look at it and where is this continent going? Where is it heading?

So, yeah.

Remy Blaire: Yeah. And Andrew, I'm so glad that you focused on what we're seeing in terms of demographics, because when we compare and contrast to other economies, nation-states, we're seeing quite the contrast here.

But when we're expanding on the opportunity, I want to hear about Kenya's first banking ETF.

So tell us why, and why the sector?

Andrew Barden: So first of all, banks are some of the most preeminent firms on the Nairobi Securities Exchange, not only from a market cap perspective, but also from a dividend yield perspective and everything else.

The Nairobi Securities Exchange not too long ago launched the banking index for the exchange.

So we said, you know what? That sounds like a good place to start because everyone knows these banks. They're some of the most well-known brands in the country.

But the idea for the ETF came actually from our Bullish Africa event last year in New York City, where we had the likes of Citadel, Goldman, JPMorgan and others who were saying, you know, we would love to get more involved in Africa.

The only problem is that the deal sizes are often too small.

You know, if you're a trader and you're trading on, you know, minimums of $50 million or so, well, you're buying entire institutions at that point when you're talking about the Kenyan banking environment.

So we said, now, in order to make it accessible to the global firms and actually hit those requirements, then you need to kind of consolidate a bit the ecosystem.

So how do you do that? You can do that through ETFs.

Remy Blaire: And there are many misconceptions out there.

And given the fact that you've lived and operated across Kenya, Egypt, what would you say are some of the biggest misconceptions out there when it comes to Western allocators, especially when we're talking about the risk and returns in East Africa?

Andrew Barden: Yeah. So I believe that a lot of people, they come to the market and they say, you know what? Africa is risky. You can't get a number on that risk.

And I don't believe that's true at all.

The data exists. Africa is rich with data. It's just not very well organized at the moment.

That's one of the things we're working on with Wall Street Africa.

We have a business intelligence platform that's been in the works for a while and will be soon launching, hopefully Q1 next year.

But beyond that, you know, addressing all of these misconceptions that arise, I had done an interesting analysis back, I think, in May, and I don't remember the exact figures, but I was comparing Dominion Energy, which is Virginia's energy company, versus Kenya Power and Lighting Company PLC.

Okay. When you compare those two, there's some very interesting things you start to learn.

If you just look at it from a simple P/E ratio comparison, Dominion trades at a very strong P/E ratio.

At the time, this was probably 18, 19, and the likes, I would check the numbers for me. It's been a while.

But KPLC, Kenya Power and Lighting, was trading at, I think, about a 1.5 P/E ratio.

So looking at that, there's a very simple opportunity there in terms of growing that, because when you look at the fundamentals of the company, they're not that different.

And I'll tell you, the dividend yield for Kenya Power is a lot better than the dividend yield on Dominion.

And so when you're in a position to better address currency risk, when you're in a position to better understand these things, that misconception people have of, oh, Africa is risky because you can't put a number to it, that is no longer the case.

You know, it's going to be a little bit of work, but those who are in at the early stage are going to see tremendous returns in the long run because, as you've seen with this comparison between the likes of Dominion and KPLC, there's endless opportunity for the likes of KPLC to grow.

Remy Blaire: Yeah. And while I have you here, I do want to ask you about your allocation framework looking beyond 2026.

And for institutional investors out there who might be evaluating emerging as well as frontier markets in today's macro environment, you've highlighted some of the volatility out there.

And even when you're comparing companies here stateside versus over there, then, of course, there are going to be a lot of challenges.

So what is the case for including direct exposure to African equities and also financial assets in a modern portfolio?

And what has 2026 shown you?

Andrew Barden: Absolutely.

So, you know, what we've seen in many African markets this year is that many of them have been the top-performing markets.

You know, globally, some of the best-performing overall indexes have been in Africa.

You know, and this is getting rid of, you know, say statistical outliers like AI indexes here in the U.S. and such.

But, you know, that's one of the opportunities I've seen.

So for someone who, you know, may be a bit more interested in having risk involved, you know, I would probably think that Africa would not be a bad place to look.

So, yeah. Does that help answer the question?

Remy Blaire: Absolutely. Yeah.

Well, Andrew, I appreciate your time.

Thank you so much for taking time out of your busy schedule to join us here at FINTECH.TV at the New York Stock Exchange.

Andrew Barden: Thank you. My pleasure.