Africa is a very significant region for the depositary receipt market, according to Anthony Moro, Head of EMEA at BNY Mellon's Depositary Receipts business.

“We are seeing for the first time ever new depository receipts programs being available to global investors for and on behalf of African companies and we expect this to grow considerably over the coming years,” Moro told Africa Global Funds.

There are two types of DR programs – capital raising and non-capital raising.

Moro said that the vast majority of African investments in DRs is through secondary market-type programs.

“The non-capital raising are essentially programs that allow investors to take part in the equity of companies without the capital raised, so the majority traded in Namibia or in Johannesburg making that stock available to primarily US investors, but any global investors that can trade in New York,” he said.

According to Christopher Kearns, CEO of BNY Mellon's Depositary Receipts business, investors continue to see DRs as a preferred option for portfolio diversification and cross-border investing.

“The dramatic jump in capital raised through DRs shows that companies from around the globe rely extensively on DRs to finance their growth and expansion,” he said.

Overall 2014 was another year of positive developments for the opening of DR markets, according to BNY Mellon.

In Africa, over the last few years the ADR market has expanded from South Africa to other sub-Saharan countries, and beyond mining into new sectors such as financial services, said Kearns.

In October, for example, Trustco Group Holdings, a diversified financial services company, launched the first sponsored ADR of any company from Namibia.

"As the first Namibian company to create an ADR program, Trustco is seeking wider access to investors looking to broaden their portfolio into new markets," added Kearns.

BNY Mellon acts as depositary for more than 2,800 American and global depositary receipt programs, acting in partnership with leading companies from over 65 countries.

“In Africa, BNY Mellon has 274 companies available to trade as depositary receipts in countries like Nigeria, South Africa, Namibia, Zambia, and all of North Africa,” said Moro.

“We recently did the first DR programs out of Namibia and Zambia and expecting to do the first program out of Kenya this year and are continued to be interested in Nigeria,” he added.

Globally, in 2014 companies from 19 countries launched 56 capital raising DR transactions and raised more than $38bn.