Nigeria is “a good place to do business and the perceptions of bribery and corruption are more to do with history than today’s realities”, says Jerome Booth, whose company Ashmore Investment Management has committed over half-a-billion dollars to investment in Nigerian government bonds and a similar figure to real estate.
“Not so,” says another fund manager, who does not wish to be named. “The country is rife with rent-seeking from top to bottom. Every political decision is bought, and every deal tarnished.” Unsurprisingly, the second London-based manager has a small investment in the country.
