Kenya will be EFG Hermes’ next expansion market under frontier push

Kenya will be EFG Hermes’ next expansion market under a frontier push that has already seen it acquire a Pakistani brokerage. The firm will receive a securities brokerage license in Kenya in the “very near term,” Bloomberg quotes Kenyan Capital Markets Authority CEO Paul Muthaura as saying. Ali Khalpey, a co-founder of Exotix Africa who is now CEO at EFG Hermes Frontier, adds that in Kenya, “The first step is a brokerage license and as we establish our presence on the ground we will expand into investment banking,” Khalpey said. “We are talking to people about recruitment, but we will wait for the license to become active. We are looking at a 10 to 15 person office. We would love to grow that as we add new products.” EFG is also looking at Nigeria (that’s more of a 2018 thing, Khalpey suggests, given economic conditions) and “Bangladesh and Vietnam look extremely interesting to us.”