Strategy overview
Investment Approach
Invests in senior private and opportunistic credit, targeting leading entities with low financial leverage
Investment Opportunity
Africa is a large and growing market that is still untapped
Investment Universe
Uncrowded African (75%) and other emerging market (25%) private-credit markets
Steven Loubser
Managing Director, Emerging Market Alternative Credit
<p>Steven is a portfolio manager in Ninety One's Emerging Market Alternative Credit team with responsibility for developing Ninety One’s Africa Credit strategies. Steven has been a portfolio manager on the Credit Opportunities Strategy since 2010, with a lead role in investing in African credit outside of South Africa. Steven has significant experience in managing portfolios, investment strategy, origination and trade execution. African credit is a core part of the credit investment capability.</p>
<p>Prior to Ninety One, Steven worked at Standard Bank where he spent nine years specialising in the debt capital markets and was the head of high yield. Steven cooperated with major African private equity sponsors, portfolio companies and high yield investors. Steven has had exposure to various debt instruments, including sovereign debt, municipal finance, project finance, corporate debt, equity-linked securities, loans and mezzanine debt.</p>
<p>Steven graduated from the University of Cape Town (Dean’s Merit List) with a Bachelor of Business Science (Hons) degree in Finance, majoring in Accounting, and has passed all three levels of the CFA® Programme.</p>
Nathaniel Micklem
Co-Head of Emerging Market Alternative Credit
<p>Nathaniel is co-head of Emerging Market Alternative Credit at Ninety One. His focus is primarily on unlisted and privately negotiated lending transactions.</p>
<p>Prior to joining the Ninety One, Nathaniel spent six years working at Standard Bank most recently as one of the founding members of the Special Situations team based in Johannesburg responsible for originating and structuring Investment Banking transactions. Prior to this, Nathaniel spent 18 months in Lagos, Nigeria within the Financial Advisory team advising local and foreign corporate clients and regulators. Before that, he served as the manager of the Equity and High Yield Capital Markets Division, with a focus on Leveraged Finance. He began his career at Standard Bank in 2006 as an associate within the Mergers & Acquisitions team.</p>
<p>Nathaniel holds a Bachelor of Business Science (Honours) degree in Finance from the University of Cape Town and has passed all three levels of the CFA® Programme.</p>
Martijn Proos
Co-Head of Emerging Market Alternative Credit
<p>Martijn is co-head of Emerging Market Alternative Credit at Ninety One. He has extensive experience in private credit markets gained in various advisory, project, corporate and structured finance roles in both emerging and developed markets. He has particular experience in infrastructure finance and has been working with The Emerging Africa Infrastructure Fund since 2008.</p>
<p>Prior to Ninety One, he worked at FMO’s Africa Infrastructure department, T-Mobile and Tebodin Consultants & Engineers.</p>
<p>Martijn holds an MSc in Business Administration from Nyenrode Business University, The Netherlands.</p>
Kobi Sam
Managing Director, Emerging Market Alternative Credit
<p>Kobi is a Managing Director in the Emerging Market Alternative Credit team at Ninety One where he leads private, opportunistic, impact, and sustainable credit investments. He also leads Origination and the Consumer, General Industries, and Services sectors for the Credit Opportunities strategy. Since joining Ninety One in 2013, he has invested in private credit, private equity and impact opportunities.</p>
<p>Prior to joining Ninety One, Kobi was a Vice President in the Strategic Advisory group at Evercore Partners where he focused on mergers & acquisitions. Before that he was a management consultant with McKinsey & Company and started his career in the Structured Credit Products group at J.P. Morgan.</p>
<p>Kobi has an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania where he was a Joseph Wharton Fellow and a Bachelor of Engineering in Electrical Engineering from Stony Brook University where he graduated summa cum laude. He also has a Certificate in ESG Investing from the CFA® Institute and is a CAIA® Charterholder.</p>