ALUWANI Capital Partners, an independent investment management business in South Africa, is understood to be relaunching its Pan-African ex South Africa fixed income fund under a new platform, according to Mishnah Seth, Head of Frontier Strategies.

“We had an offshore vehicle, which we’ve closed down and we’re looking to relaunch under a South African registered vehicle. That’s something we’ll be doing over the next couple of months,” Seth told Africa Global Funds.

“We understand the South African institutional market, we have relationships here and it would therefore make sense from an initial asset gathering perspective,” she said.

ALUWANI Capital Partners was founded in December 2015 following a management buy-out of Momentum Asset Management’s third party institutional business by senior staff.

The Momentum Africa Equity Fund and the Momentum Africa Fixed Income Fund became part of ALUWANI and have been rebranded as the ALUWANI Africa Equity Fund and the ALUWANI Africa Fixed Income respectively.

While the Africa fixed income fund is in the process of being relaunched, the Africa equity fund was essentially a South African registered vehicle and therefore remains an active vehicle.

Seth said that funds’ investors have been quite supportive with the move, because “the investment teams, the philosophy and strategy – have all remained the same”.

Seth, who manages the ALUWANI Africa Equity Fund, said that the Fund’s highest country exposures are in Egypt in Nigeria currently.

“There are liquidity issues on the back of FX shortages in both these markets. But we’ve remained constructive over the longer term and have re-focused our portfolio towards quality names in both markets,” she said.

Seth added that it’s been a difficult start to the year in particular in Nigeria, but the Fund has however largely maintained its positioning.

“Given that we’ve adopted a medium to long term time horizon, you’re currently in the position where you can get very high quality assets at very depressed valuations. We are holding to our positions in Nigeria (mostly banking and consumers). We don’t think that it is going to be an easy environment over the short-term, but fundamentally the businesses remain strong,” she added.

Outside of Nigeria and Egypt, the Fund has allocations to Kenya, Mauritius and offshore companies in the UK that operate in Africa.

Apart from frontier strategies, the company offers South African fixed income and equity capabilities as well as the ALUWANI Balanced Fund.

“We are active in South Africa and on the continent. The majority of our assets currently are South African fixed income assets. We have ambitions to grow the equity side of the business in South Africa and broader Africa and Frontier,” Seth said.

Overall, the company manages assets of more than R60bn on behalf of institutional clients ranging from retirement funds, corporates, municipalities, medical aids to government owned enterprises.

Seth doesn’t think that ALUWANI is a boutique firm: “I wouldn’t say we’re a boutique, because we’re not an equity only or a fixed income only investment house. We offer a multi strategy offering. We have a large enough asset base to support a large team of investment professionals and a robust institutional structure.”

Seth said that this year the firm will be focusing on "consolidating as an organization and remaining focused on its commitment to its clients".