Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority Case Study

THE RISE OF SOVEREIGN WEALTH FUNDS :

The « Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA) » case study

Monday, April 11th, 2016, ISCAE Casablanca’s grand amphitheatre. A conference under the theme of “The Rise of Sovereign Wealth Funds” was held by the Managing Director and CEO of the Nigerian Wealth Fund, Uche ORJI.

Mr. Uche ORJI, a Harvard Business School Alumni, has joined the NSIA as its Managing Director and CEO in October 2012, from Switzerland’s largest bank, UBS Securities, where he was the Managing Director in the New York branch of its Equities Division. Prior to his UBS experience, Mr. Orji spent six years at JP Morgan in London, from 2001 to 2006, rising from the position of Vice President to Managing Director within the Equities Division.

Mr. Orji judged relevant – in order to go through the subject of the “Rise of SWFs” to start off from his own experience as Managing Director of the Nigerian SWF and walk us through the establishment of the NSWF, the reason of its existence and its current structure. Mr. Orji was generous in sharing his insights regarding the challenges he faced when going back to his home country to work for a government “startup” that the Nigerian Sovereign Wealth Fund was in 2012 and the potential outlooks for the development of SWFs in general.

PART I – GENERALITIES ABOUT SWF About the SWFs’ reason of being

Sovereign wealth funds were created in the purpose of responding to the challenge of managing effectively the available resources in order to secure revenues for future generations. The idea behind creating the SWFs is for governments to invest their resources in areas that will support economic activity and secure future job opportunities. One of the SWF success stories is the Norwegian SWF that has enabled the country to subsist the World War II’s aftermath.