African mining Indaba attracts 4,000 delegates

Clearly, Africa is the new investment destination. The African Mining Indaba started with optimism and around 4,000 delegates versus 3,800 last year. This is the first big mining conference to be held since the end of the global financial crisis,

Formal talks on day one all involved commodity forecasting, and delivered a steady stream of observations about rare metals, uranium, iron ore, gold and copper. Somewhat predictably most forecasts were optimistic about the outlook, though a clear message was that 2010 will be a year when supply issues dominate demand.

Silk Road Income Fund awarded ‘Golden Bull’

Silk Invest’s Luxembourg SICAV, the Silk Road Income Fund, has been awarded the ‘Golden Bull’ prize for innovation at the ‘Finanzen Nacht’ ceremony in Munich. Hailed by the German press as the “Oscar of the financial world”, the award is sponsored by Euro, Germany’s leading finance publication. The gala evening was attended by over 500 delegates.

The Silk Road Income Fund was launched in October 2009. It gives investors exposure to a range of frontier fixed income markets, previously inaccessible to mainstream European investors in the shape of a UCITS compliant fund.

The award winning hedge fund was launched to compliment Silk Invest’s equity offerings, namely the African Lions and Arab Falcons funds. As its name implies, the geographic remit of the fund is Africa, the Middle East and the Central Asia, leveraging of Silk Invest’s position as a market leader in these geographies

The Silk Road Income Fund aims to manage 60-80 holdings across 25 countries. The target portfolio is to achieve annual returns of 16.5% with a duration of 3.4 years and an average rating of “BB+”.

African Development Bank USD benchmark bond

The African Development Bank plans to sell three-year bonds denominated in U.S. dollars. The Tunisia-based lender has hired Daiwa Capital Markets, Deutsche Bank AG, Goldman Sachs and UBS AG to manage the sale. The sale is expected to be be benchmark in size, which typically means at least $500 million.