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NSIA Funds

Nigeria Infrastructure Fund

The Nigeria Infrastructure Fund (NIF) is one of three distinct and ring-fenced funds managed by the Authority. It focuses entirely on domestic investments in certain sectors of the Nigerian economy, some of which include motorways, healthcare, power and agriculture.
Objective

Enhance the development of infrastructure, primarily through investment in domestic infrastructure projects that meet targeted financial returns.

Initial %Assets Allocation & Size

40% allocation / US$400 million​

New % Allocation & Current Size**

50% allocation / US$1bn​

Strategic Asset Allocation / Focus Sectors
Agriculture Healthcare Motorways Power
Gas Industrialisation Financial markets Technology
Mandate / Recent Investments

  • Gas Industrialisation: Co-developing a US$1.4 billion Ammonia Plant with OCP of Morocco
  • Technology: Set up a US$200 million innovation fund for investments in Information technology in Nigeria
  • Agriculture: Sponsored new local currency-denominated agriculture fund with 10bn seed capital.
  • Healthcare: Invested US$202 million in Cancer treatment and development of diagnostic centres in Nigeria.

Expected Average Annualized Returns

US CPI + 300 BPS

Investment Horizon

Long term > 20 yrs

The Fund’s mandate is to catalyse growth in the stock of infrastructure assets in the country. Unlike the SF and FGF – the Authority’s other core funds, which are outsourced to external fund managers – the NIF is managed by an in-house team of investment professionals tasked with identifying infrastructure investment opportunities, facilitating project development for potential investments, and recommending projects for investment to the Board.

The Nigeria Infrastructure Fund (NIF) aims to invest in domestic infrastructure projects that meet targeted financial returns and contribute to the development of essential infrastructure in order to stimulate the growth and diversification of the Nigerian economy, attract foreign investment and create jobs for Nigerians. Potential areas for investments include healthcare, transportation, energy and power, water resources and agriculture, amongst others. The Authority may invest up to a maximum of 10% of the funds in NIF in social infrastructure projects, which promote economic development in underserved sectors or regions in the country.

In pursuit of the objectives of the NIF, a Five-Year Infrastructure Investment rolling plan (the Five-Year Plan) has been prepared to provide strategic guidance for NIF investments. Furthermore, an Infrastructure Fund Investment Policy Statement (IPS) was also developed. The IPS provides an investment framework for the NIF, setting out the NIF’s investment objectives, risk tolerance and constraints. The IPS was adopted by the Board of Directors in Q4 2013.

The NSIA infrastructure strategy is anchored on three pillars:

  1. Direct investment in infrastructure projects or companies.
  2. Co-investment strategy via the establishment of co-investment funds.
  3. Creation of institutions that support infrastructure development.

The Authority received an additional contribution of US$250 million from the Federal Government in 2020. In accordance with its fund allocation, 50% of the new contribution (US$125 million) was allocated to the NIF for domestic investments in selected infrastructure sectors.

The Five Year Rolling Plans

In accordance with the NSIA Act, each year, a Five-Year Infrastructure Investment rolling plan is to be developed pursuant to such strategies, regulations, policies, and guidelines as it may determine to be most effective to achieve its objectives.

These objectives include supporting, through investment predicated upon financial returns to NSIA, the development in Nigeria of essential infrastructures such as power generation, distribution and transmission infrastructure, healthcare infrastructure, real estate, agriculture, transport infrastructure, and water resources infrastructure, amongst others. This is to stimulate the growth and diversification of the Nigerian economy, attract foreign investment and create jobs for Nigerians.

The Focus Sectors

Out of the fifteen investible sectors identified at the inception of the NSIA, our initial core focus areas are:

In the Authority's opinion, Nigeria has the potential to not only be food-secure but also to become the food basket for the region and a significant player in the global food export market. To achieve this, the Authority's strategy is to invest in a diversified portfolio of infrastructure-focused projects which cut across the food value chain, deploying modern technology, innovative farming and regenerative agriculture Practices, with a balanced focus on local and export production to drive foreign currency revenue generation, improved nutrition, job creation and food security.

Our long-term objective intended to ultimately ensure rural development, poverty alleviation, encourage adequate budgetary allocations to agriculture, particularly towards the development of supporting infrastructure and the enunciation of appropriate policies for the sector.

Over the years, the NSIA has invested across the entire agri value chain, applying multiple instruments. These include:

  • an investment in the Fund for Agricultural Finance in Nigeria (FAFIN) alongside the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMARD) and Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KfW), the German Government-owned development bank;
  • the acquisition and expansion of a fully integrated poultry feed production company in Nasarawa State, with backward integration through the cultivation of maize and soybeans utilizing both rain-fed and irrigation systems;
  • a debt investment in Babban Gona;
  • the operations and management of the Presidential Fertiliser Initiative ("PFI") through a special purpose vehicle ("SPV")- PFI-NPK Limited (formally known as NAIC-NPK Ltd). The PFI is focused on reviving Nigeria's moribund domestic fertilizer blending, reducing the cost of direct fertilizer subsidies to the Federal Government, improving accessibility, and delivering commercially significant quantities of affordable and consistently high-quality NPK fertilizers to the country's growing population of smallholder farmers.
  • more recently, the NSIA Board approved the establishment of the Agri Plus Fund with the provision of ₦10 billion in seed funding. The Fund will focus on raising local currency capital to invest in large-scale projects across the agri value chain, focusing on export produce to drive foreign currency generation.

The NSIA is open to new investment opportunities that bridge the critical infrastructure and technical skills gap hindering the quality and volume of Nigeria's agriculture output.

NSIA is committed to serving as an enabler to fill in noticeable voids in the Financial Market Infrastructure (FMI) landscape in Nigeria. The Authority is of the view that there are critically important institutions which need to be developed in Nigeria. These institutions include those that will be responsible for providing clearing, settlement and recording of monetary and other financial transactions in the country.

NSIA is supporting the creation of an ecosystem of institutions to address critical gaps in Nigeria’s financial systems. The institutions operationalized so far include:

  • Infrastructure Credit Guarantee Company Ltd (InfraCredit)
  • Development Bank of Nigeria (DBN)
  • Nigeria Mortgage Refinance Company (NMRC)
  • Family Homes Fund Ltd
  • NG Clearing Ltd
  • Equilease

At inception, NSIA conducted a review of the Nigerian healthcare sector. We identified three segments within the sector to pursue investment opportunities.

These include:

  • Tertiary specialist hospitals: Investment in hospitals providing healthcare focused on non-communicable diseases. Within this segment, NSIA will seek partnerships with existing public hospitals to leverage the breadth of clinical capacity at these establishments.
  • Medical diagnostic facilities: Investments in this segment would focus on establishing modern medical diagnostic facilities either as standalone facilities or joint venture partnerships with public hospitals.
  • Medical manufacturing: Investments in greenfield or brownfield pharmaceutical manufacturing facilities, or other medical equipment and supplies manufacturing facilities.

To date, NSIA, through its healthcare investment subsidiary, NSIA Healthcare Investment and Development Company (NHDIC), has built and commissioned three healthcare centres namely: a Cancer treatment centre in Lagos, the NSIA-LUTH Cancer Centre and two diagnostic centres; NSIA-Umuahia Diagnostic Centre (NUDC) and NSIA-Kano Diagnostic Centre (NKDC).

As it rolls out more projects, NSIA aims to establish at least 23 state-of-the-art, healthcare centres of excellence across the country as well as tertiary specialist hospitals to undertake advanced surgery and medical care.

NSIA’s objective remains to advance Nigeria’s power generation and distribution capabilities. The Authority is of the view that reliable power supply is essential to Nigeria’s future growth prospects, particularly in light of the nation’s focus on job creation and the development of an industrial base. With the ongoing transformation of Nigeria’s power sector, NSIA continues to evaluate opportunities alongside private investors across the power sector value chain. We are seeing an increasing number of attractive investment opportunities in renewable energy.

The NSIA has developed the largest solar farm in Nigeria. The project entailed the installation and operation of a 10 MW solar power plant in the Challawa Industrial Area in Kumbotso Local Government Area of Kano State, as a demonstration pilot project to stimulate investment in the Nigerian power sector. The project created over 2500 direct and indirect jobs across the construction and operational phases of the project.

NSIA is also in advanced discussions with respect to a number of partnership opportunities with institutional players and development institutions interested in early-stage investments in thermal, solar, and hydropower generation.

The Nigerian technology ecosystem is hampered by a deficiency in digital infrastructure, including but not limited to stable broadband internet and widespread mobile adoption that enables innovators to build and distribute their products and services. There is also a significant dearth of digital talent to build and scale domestic technological solutions, thereby inhibiting the sector’s growth.

The NSIA established a US$200 million Innovation Fund to catalyze the technology ecosystem in Nigeria, with a seed commitment of US$25 million. The Authority’s pioneer investment in the technology sector was developing the 57.6MW hyperscale data center by Kasi Cloud Limited in Lekki, Lagos. The Lagos campus is expected to be one of many nationwide centers.

Similarly, as part of our support to the Tech Ecosystem, NSIA held its maiden edition of the NSIA Prize For Innovation Program in 2023. This event rewarded tech entrepreneurs with cash prizes and investments in the businesses of the top 3 winners. More fundamentally, this event seeks to expand financial and non-financial resources to startups in the Nigerian technology sector.

The NSIA is actively pursuing investments in road infrastructure delivery and maintenance to improve the general state of the roads, reduce the funding burden on the Federation Account and introduce private sector efficiencies to the procurement, delivery and management of road infrastructure.

The Presidential Infrastructure Development Fund (PIDF) was established in 2018 by President Muhammadu Buhari, GCFR, to accelerate the execution of certain critical, strategic infrastructure projects essential to the rapid growth and modernization of Nigeria’s economy. NSIA was appointed Fund and Project Manager of PIDF. The Ongoing PIDF projects include: 1) Abuja-Kano Road (“AKR”) 2) Second Niger Bridge (“2NB”), and 3) Lagos-Ibadan Expressway (“LIE”).

The AKR is divided into three sections (Section 1 – Abuja to Kaduna; Section 2 – Kaduna to Zaria, and Section 3 – Zaria to Kano). As of Q2, 2023, the percentage completion on the main carriageway was 51%.

The Lagos-Ibadan Expressway is divided into two sections (Section 1 – Lagos to Shagamu and Section 2 – Shagamu to Ibadan. As of Q2, 2023, the overall completion on the main carriageway was 89%. The 2NB attained 98% completion as of Q3, 2023.

In the Authority’s view, Nigeria has an opportunity to leverage its vast gas resources to quicken industrialisation. NSIA’s major objective for the gas sector is to transform Nigeria into an industrialised nation with gas playing a major role in the country’s economic transformation agenda. NSIA views gas development as a catalyst for economic diversification and industrialization.

Under a partnership programme with OCP of Morocco, NSIA is developing a chemical blend fertiliser plant and an Ammonia plant which will be sited in Akwa Ibom State. The project called, the Multipurpose Industrial Platform Ltd (MIPL) will be a backward integration initiative which will ensure that Nigeria is able to produce Ammonia, a basic input in fertilizer production.

The MIPP plant, on completion, will produce 750,000MT per annum of Ammonia; part of this Ammonia, combined with Phosphoric and Sulphuric acids will be combined to further produce 1 million MT per annum of Diammonium Phosphate (DAP) and NPK fertilizers. The domestic market in Nigeria will be the primary beneficiary, whilst excess Ammonia will be exported to Morocco.