The £1.7bn ($2.65bn) Royal County of Berkshire Pension Fund is looking to increase its exposure to developing markets, which by definition will include Africa, according to Nick Greenwood, Pension Fund Manager.

“It is early days and I can’t say how we will increase this exposure,” he told Africa Global Funds.

The UK pension scheme has previously invested in two Africa-focused funds - African Infrastructure Investment Fund and Kuramo Africa Opportunities Fund, a multi-asset fund of funds that invests in Sub-Saharan Africa-focused managers.

Greenwood said their current total exposure to Africa is less than 1% of assets.

The pension fund’s latest commitment in the frontier markets space was a $15m investment in the Sarona Frontier Markets Fund 2.

The fund held its final close in December 2014, raising a total of $150m from a mixture of institutional investors, family offices and high-net-worth individuals.

With seven primary fund investments and two fund investments purchased on the secondary market, the Sarona Fund is currently invested in 28 small to mid-cap companies in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Mexico, Indonesia, Malaysia, India, Turkey, Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria.

Greenwood said that the fund would consider a first time manager but would need to see a “verifiable track record elsewhere”.

“Investment is likely to be in multi-country rather than single country funds with a clear investment thesis that matches ours,” he said.

When asked about opportunities in Africa, Greenwood said: “We believe that these markets offer opportunities for growth via infrastructure needs and the growth of the consumer – food and water is also an important theme in these markets.”

Another pension fund has recently announced its plans to increase allocation to Africa.

In May, the New York State Common Retirement Fund, one of the largest US Pension funds with $181bn AUM, said it is considering investing up to 2 to 3% of assets across all sectors of the portfolio in Africa over the next five years.