British private equity investors are turning their attention to Sierra Leone, the West African country that is trying to recover from its decade-long civil war. Tom Cairnes, the co-founder, with Niall O’Cathasaigh, of the Sierra Leone Investment Fund, which trades in the capital, Freetown, as ManoCap, says that only robust investments to boost indigenous businesses will help to spur economic growth in the nation of 6.3 million people.
Mr Cairnes said: “If we employ Sierra Leoneans in the next five to ten years, create business management schemes and bring people through managerial processes within our business, we would be creating the next generation of managers [and] this is the only way to change the lives of the majority of the people.”
Via AfricanPath