Africa not totally immune from tumultuous market....

While the Eurekahedge Emerging Markets Hedge Fund Index went down 7.13% in September and -16.13% YTD, some African funds are actually not doing too badly.

2 out of Scipion`s 3 funds are up YTD
Scipion Alpha Seeker Fund was down 9.37% in September and up 21.61% YTD. To obtain absolute returns, and to outperform the benchmark (MSCI EM Index), Scipion Alpha Seeker Fund is an actively managed portfolio of shares covering the African continent, excluding South Africa and Egypt as those markets are more correlated to other traditional emerging markets than the rest of the continent.

The manager commented; “the prices that we are now seeing have not been seen since 2006, and clearly there are now good opportunities to enter at basement price level. Some stocks, particularly in the banking sector however, do have more room to fall, and consequently we are reviewing our sector allocation, as well as our country allocation where we feel the currency is highly vulnerable to foreign exchange pressure and where it cannot be efficiently hedged.”

Scipion Commodity Trade Finance Fund was up 0.23% in September, 5.14% YTD. The fund finances the cross border trade of goods and services, both to and from Africa. The manager said that September had seen a degree of deleveraging of the fund as the end of the coffee season was coming, with end buyers repaying stocks financed by the fund. Draw-downs to finance stock in Africa for the new season will only materialise towards the (fast approaching) end of the year.

Scipion African Opportunities Fund SPC is a Cayman domiciled Segregated Portfolio Company offering different share classes all focusing on Africa. The fund was down 15.66% in September, -29.53% YTD. Scipion Capital has offices in Londo......................

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Africa not totally immune from tumultuous market....