Wall St Journal lists Nigeria as #1 destination for foreign investors

Nigeria, Argentina and Vietnam are the most appealing places for
multinationals, this is according to a survey by Wall Street Journal.
Find the report below...

Fresh from its coronation as the biggest economy in Africa, Nigeria
has scored another first. The troubled West African country has
emerged as the frontier-market economy that is attracting the most
attention from American and European multinationals.

Nigeria is joined by Argentina and Vietnam as the frontier markets
that multinational corporations are most interested in, according to a
new index of corporate sentiment.

The Frontier Markets Sentiment Index, created exclusively for the Wall
Street Journal by Washington DC-based advisory firm Frontier Strategy
Group, tracks the level of interest shown by major European and
American multinational companies in countries across the frontier
markets world.

The index is a based on information collected from FSG's roughly 200
multinational clients, which include companies such as
Coca-ColaKO-0.12%, General ElectricGE+0.30%, NovartisNOVN.VX-0.06%,
Dell and Akzo NobelAKZOY-0.97%. Matt Lasov, FSG's global head of
advisory and analytics, explains how the index works: "We collect data
about which countries the companies are watching for potential future
investment. Over time, that gives us a clear picture of their market
priorities—which countries are they including in their future plans
and which they are dropping."
The research provides two key insights: the current state of sentiment
toward countries in the frontier markets, and the change in sentiment
over time. Corporate sentiment is calculated as the percentage of
companies that include a particular country on their watch-list. If 50
of the 200 companies are keeping an eye on a particular country, the
sentiment index score would be 25%.

The data point to some striking regional differences. Of the 20
countries attracting most interest from multinationals, nine are in
sub-Saharan Africa. Few will be surprised to see Kenya and Nigeria
among the top tier, but Ethiopia and Tanzania making it onto the list
as the 12th- and 13th-most watched countries respectively might cause
a few raised eyebrows.

One person who won't be surprised to see growing interest among
multinationals for investing in Ethiopia is Alexander Benard, chief
operating officer of Schulze Global, a private equity firm. "We are
very excited about Ethiopia," Benard says. "We believe it has huge
potential."

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