“Bullish Africa” heads to New York in Septemebr

Wall Street Africa Inc. will convene the second edition of Bullish Africa on September 22 this year in New York alongside the UN General Assembly week, as the forum seeks to convene African corporate issuers, institutional investors, financial institutions, regulators, exchanges, sovereign representatives, and development finance institutions under the same roof.

 

Held under the theme “Africa Isn’t the Risk. The Intelligence Gap Is,” Bullish Africa 2026 will focus on the conditions African companies need to meet to become more accessible to institutional capital, and the information investors need to assess opportunities across African markets.

 

Its premise is that the constraint is increasingly not the absence of investable opportunities, but the availability of comparable, current, and decision-grade information required to underwrite them.

 

“The case for African returns has been made many times over. What has not been built is the information infrastructure that allows a pension trustee in Johannesburg or an allocator in New York to underwrite an African company with the same confidence they bring to any other market.

 

We believe that this is a solvable problem. In September, we are putting issuers and allocators in the same sessions and asking a narrower question: what specifically stands between this company and an institutional mandate, and who has to move first?” said Eric Asuma, Co-Founder and CEO of Wall Street Africa Inc.

 

The conversation comes against a period of stronger performance across several African capital markets. In 2025, the FTSE/JSE All Share Index returned 56.7 per cent in US dollar terms, while the Nigerian Exchange returned 60.6 per cent, the Nairobi Securities Exchange returned 51.4 per cent, and Egypt’s EGX 30 returned 49.9 per cent. Private capital activity was more mixed.

 

According to AVCA’s 2025 African Private Capital Activity Report, Africa was the only region globally to record growth in private capital deal activity during the year, with 530 transactions completed, up 8 per cent, while total deal value declined 5 per cent to US$5.1 billion.

 

A more immediate signal came from Kenya in March 2026, when Kenya Pipeline Company sold a 65 per cent stake for KES 106.3 billion, approximately US$823 million, in the country’s largest share sale since Safaricom in 2008.

 

The offer was 105.7 per cent subscribed and anchored by Uganda’s National Social Security Fund, placing African institutional capital directly in the equity layer of a major infrastructure asset.

 

“In March, Kenya Pipeline sold a 65 per cent stake in Kenya’s largest share sale since 2008, and the book was anchored by African pension funds. That is the signal worth paying attention to.

 

African institutional capital is beginning to show up in the equity layer. Bullish Africa exists to deepen that participation by building a stronger pipeline of investment-ready companies, improving market information and creating structures that allow institutions to participate more meaningfully in financing African enterprise,” said Andrew Barden, Co-Founder and President of Wall Street Africa Inc.

 

Bullish Africa 2026 is designed around direct engagement between the two sides of the capital equation. Issuers will examine disclosure, governance, reporting cadence, free float and market accessibility, while investors will set out the information and conditions required to support institutional mandates.

 

The programme will include keynote conversations, panel sessions, sector roundtables, curated investor introductions, closed-door working sessions and a curated art exhibition. Bullish Africa 2026 is supported by the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), Safaricom PLC, Absa Group, NCBA Group, Hisa, P&L Consulting Group and Invest Kenya, among many others to be announced in due course.

 

The inaugural edition, Bullish Kenya, brought together more than 110 senior executives from over 15 countries across five continents in New York in September 2025. Attendance at the 2026 forum is by invitation and accreditation. Prospective delegates and media may register at https://wallstreet.africa/bullish-africa.