BY MICHAEL EBOH with Agency Report

Helios Investment Partners LLP, a private-equity firm that focuses on Africa, has invested about $50 million (N8 billion) in the acquisition of a minority stake in a Nigeria firm, ARM Pension Managers PFA Limited.

Mr. Tope Lawani, co-founder of Helios Investment, who disclosed this in an interview, said the acquisition is targeted at aimed at tapping into the opportunities in Nigeria pension market.
“We believe, conservatively, that aggregate defined contribution pension assets in Nigeria will exceed $150 billion within the next 10 years, representing a sevenfold increase,”

Tope Lawani, the former TPG Capital executive who co-founded Helios in 2004 said.  Bank of America Merrill Lynch analysts, including Wesley Fogel, had stated that Nigeria’s mandatory defined-contribution pension plan should double registrations to 13 million by 2020.

“This is a new industry which has grown from nothing in 2004 when the pension legislation was approved,” Mr. Fogel told The Wall Street Journal.
Helios’s previous investments include Nigerian payment processing company Interswitch and Kenya’s Flamingo Holdings, which grows cut flowers and fresh vegetables.

Nigeria’s pension market has grown by 30 per cent a year since 2006, when a pension law requiring mandatory contributions was implemented, according to Helios. ARM manages about $2.1 billion.