Now at $150m the fund has been closed to new investors to preserve liquidity and help protect shareholders’ interests.
Renaissance said UK and European investors were chiefly responsible for the take up of the strategy since the start of 2013.
Existing clients, including fund provider platforms will be able to add to their holdings until the fund reaches capacity, which is expected to be at $200m.
Adrian Harris, head of distribution and investor relations, said: “We believe that tightly-managed capacity allows our institutional investors to access the best investment opportunities without sacrificing liquidity. We continued to see strong demand for our African capabilities which can be accessed via our Sub-Saharan and Pan-African Funds and which are run using the same disciplined approach led by Sven Richter.”
Attractive returns
Strong equity market returns of +45% in Nigeria and Kenya over 12 months have prompted more interest in the region, Renaissance added.
It said the Sub-Saharan and Pan-African Funds are the two best-performing African equity funds so far this year in Morningstar’s African equity category. The former also returned 31.4% for investors in 2012, according to Bloomberg.
The Pan-African Fund has a broader geographic remit and provides access to more liquid markets, therefore has greater fund capacity than the Sub-Sahara product.
Fund manager Richter, said: “Africa is Asia 15 years ago. Anybody who doesn’t have an allocation to Africa is missing something. But investors need to be cautious – certain valuations are getting rich, especially those backed by European names as they are preferred by managers with limited experience in the region.”
