Pensions Advice, Retirement Planning - Investment Financial Adviser Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland UK

Posted by William on February 11th, 2008 in Investment Advice

Is 2008 a good time to invest in Africa? The CEO of Cru Investment Management, Jon Maguire certainly thinks so. Inspired by a visit to Malawi in 2005, Jon decided that the best way to help was through investment. He saw first hand the severe and chronic problems faced by people in countries such as Malawi, where the current average annual wage is just £57.

He saw that despite all the aid given, Africa never seems to get better. “I realised that Malawi does not actually have an economy” Maguire says “without an economy how could she ever grow to be independent of donor aid?” So Jon set up Africa Invest which now owns four farms and is already directly or indirectly supporting 80,000 villagers with plans to increase employment to 10,000 on three times the countries standard wage.

Africa Invest wants to lease 20,000 hectares of land in the first half of 2008 and to then build two plants to process 6000 tonnes of Paprika and Africa Invest is cutting out the middlemen, who inflate a factory gate price for herbs in Malawi into a UK selling price of £162 per kilo….a 10000% profit en route. It is investing to position itself as a major exporter of chillies and herbs to the UK, where it hopes to raise consumer awareness about the value chain and to secure 10% of the UK selling price for the farmers, which should lead to a sharp increase in profits in Malawi.

Africa Invest is hoping to raise £30m from investors over the next few months, half of it from a special retail product for small investors with a minimum £3000 investment. Only 30% of the capital will be directly invested in the fund, the remainder will be used to provide a safety net of seven year capital guarantees.

Investment Case For The Plan

Your investment enjoys full capital protection after seven years.

Unlimited upside potential, driven by the profits of commercial farming in Africa. This return is fuelled by upward trends in food and farmland prices, improved crop yields through investing in irrigation systems, low labour costs and investment in food processing to capture more profit.

An exceptional ethical investment. A major advance in poverty reduction, already demonstrating that for every £1000 invested, 11 Malawians enjoy sustainable financial benefits.

Potential for “super profit”, with underlying investments targeting a UK listing in 2014.

Target of £120 million to be raised by the Plan, resulting in financial benefit for circa 1.3 million Malawians, 9% of the entire population.

Available for a double ISA tax-year offer period; also available as a SIPP investment.

If you are interested on finding out more about the Africa Invest Capital Protected plan from CRU please drop me a line. It’s this type of investment which I love being involved with both from a personal standpoint as well as from a professional advisory perspective - and I’ll be only too happy to help you towards fairer, ethical investment without sacrificing high returns on your money.