A Review of Private Equity Financing in Nigeria

Nigeria, with an estimated population of 160 million, is undoubtedly the most populous African country and indeed the largest assemblage of black population in the world. Nigeria’s economic outlook in recent times appears promising with rising telecom density, consolidated ITC infrastructures and capabilities, enduring democratization, gradual reforms in key sectors, especially the recent attempt to completely deregulate the downstream petroleum sector by the removal of fuel subsidy, and more. While Nigeria’s population sets it up as a destination for foreign investors, in the past, the country’s incidence of poverty-54 percent in 2007 (Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN Annual Report, 2007) —disturbing reports of corrupt practices, lack of transparency in governance, and its rather volatile business environment paint it somewhat gray, or project a measure of asymmetry. No doubt, current efforts to improve the situation, such as increasing demand capacity, reduction of unemployment rate currently at 21 percent, creation of safer nonrestive business environment to improve manufacturing capacity utilization rate currently estimated as 55 percent, (National Bureau of Statistics, 2010), and so on, simply suggest setting the agenda for active private sector participation especially in the nonoil sector. Nigeria is one of Africa’s largest oil and gas producers, and produces 3.3 percent of the world’s oil supply (NBS, 2010). Surprisingly, average GDP growth in the five years 2006–2010 in the oil sector is –2.76 percent, whereas it is 8.94 percent for the nonoil sector (CBN Annual Report, 2010). It is the third largest economy in Africa, after South Africa and Egypt.