Ghana gets first hedge fund

As Ghana crashed out of the ongoing World Cup match in Brazil, a former regulator is gearing up to give the country its first hedge fund.

Maxwell Gidi has founded Tikowrie Capital in Ghana and the firm’s maiden fund, which formally opens to investors today, aims to raise in excess of GHC5 million (US$1.5 million) over the next three weeks.

Gidi hopes the commodity- and currency-focused firm will have between GHC30 million and GHC50 million under management within five years.

“The appetite of investors in the country has grown over the years,” he told Bloomberg News. “They’re looking for more sophisticated avenues of investment.”

Tikowrie will be the first such avenue, Ghana’s Securities and Exchange Commission reports. But it is unlikely to be the last: The SEC—where Gidi worked for seven years in its broker-dealer department—is now reviewing new policies that will allow it to regulate alternative investments, proposals expected to be passed into law before the end of the year.

Tikowrie will trade in U.S. dollars, Australian dollars, Canadian dollars, the euro, British pound and yen, Gidi said, investing in gold, copper, palladium and sovereign debt.