Africa produces. The deeper question is how much of the value created by that production remains on the continent.
A crop can leave a farm as an agricultural commodity and return as packaged food.
Cotton can leave as raw material and return as finished fabric.
Minerals can leave the ground, pass through layers of trading and processing, and create margins far from the communities in which they originated.
Consumer goods can cross oceans into markets where many of the inputs, skills and demand required to produce them already exist.
For Africa Firm, this gap between what Africa produces and where the final value is captured is one of the most important investment questions on the continent.
Our portfolio is being built around that question.
Production is only the beginning
Ghana offers a particularly clear example.
The country is currently Africa’s leading gold producer, according to Ghana’s Minerals Commission.
It has a long textile tradition.
It has agricultural land and established poultry demand.
It has a growing consumer market that buys footwear, clothing, housing, media and technology.
Yet being rich in resources or demand does not automatically mean retaining the economic value associated with them.
The greatest value often appears later in the chain: in processing, manufacturing, branding, distribution, technology, financing, logistics or market access.
Our investment thesis is therefore not simply to participate in African production.
It is to move further along the chain.
Textiles: from consumption to production
Consider textiles.
Ghana has its own rich textile history, from Kente and smock weaving to wax and printed fabrics. But GIPC’s manufacturing-sector analysis also illustrates the scale of the import imbalance: in 2020, Ghana recorded roughly US$1.1 billion of textile imports against about US$18 million of exports, according to the trade data cited in its sector report.
That gap is not merely a trade statistic.
It represents manufacturing activity, employment, design capability, industrial knowledge and commercial margin being captured somewhere.
Indigo Textiles sits inside this opportunity.
Rather than treating fabric as a generic imported product, Indigo serves specific African institutions and occasions — churches, schools, corporates, funerals, events and associations — through customised printing and design.
The opportunity is therefore not only import substitution.
It is local value creation around local demand.
Design closer to the customer.
Production closer to the customer.
Faster iteration.
More of the expenditure remaining in the domestic productive economy.
Footwear: converting demand into industrial capability
The same pattern exists in footwear.
GIPC’s manufacturing research identifies footwear as another import-heavy category in Ghana. In 2020, its data recorded approximately US$216 million in rubber-footwear imports alone.
But Ghana also has labour, a domestic market, regional demand and the ability to manufacture.
Shoe Fabriek’s response is physical and straightforward: make the product here.
Its factory in Ghana manufactures security boots, safety boots, school shoes and casual footwear using industrial production infrastructure, with stated capacity of up to 800 pairs per day across different models.
Every locally manufactured pair represents more than a finished product.
It represents production experience.
A machine being utilised.
A worker becoming more skilled.
A supplier relationship becoming more mature.
A manufacturing balance sheet becoming stronger.
Over time, those capabilities are what allow an economy to produce increasingly sophisticated goods.
Industrialisation is rarely one enormous leap.
It is accumulated competence.
Agriculture: capture more before the farm gate and after it
Agriculture has its own version of value leakage.
If a farmer sells into an inefficient chain, margins can be lost in feed costs, fragmented procurement, poor storage, low productivity and layers of middlemen before the product reaches the customer.
Akro Farms is built around a more integrated model.
Its operation combines poultry production with chicks, eggs, feed and meat, supported by automated systems. It also works with local farmers growing maize and other feed components through an out-grower model.
This creates a broader economic footprint than simply buying and selling chickens.
Feed procurement connects the poultry business to crop farmers.
Automation improves the economics of production.
Integrated operations create opportunities to control quality and reduce avoidable inefficiencies.
Ghana’s own investment-promotion material identifies Akro Farms among the country’s key livestock-sector players, producing feed, day-old chicks and eggs in the Akuapim North area.
For Africa Firm, agriculture therefore represents both food security and industrial organisation.
The objective is not merely to grow more.
It is to build better systems around what is grown.
Gold: participation beyond extraction
Gold makes the value-chain question particularly visible.
Ghana is not a marginal participant in the global gold market. It is Africa’s number-one producer.
Africa Firm’s strategic-commodities portfolio includes SAS Gold Trading, reflecting an interest not only in the physical resource but in the commercial infrastructure surrounding it.
Extraction is one part of a commodity economy.
Trading, aggregation, compliance, logistics, market intelligence, financing and trusted access to buyers are others.
The strategic question for African capital is how more of those functions can be built locally and institutionally.
A resource-rich country should aspire to more than being the first stop in a global value chain.
Real estate and technology are part of the same thesis
At first glance, real estate and environmental technology may appear separate from poultry, textiles, footwear and commodities.
We see them as connected.
Okoman RE is positioned around green real-estate development and Africa’s transition toward a lower-carbon built environment. Polaris focuses on technologies that address environmental challenges and improve resource utilisation.
Both address the infrastructure surrounding productive economies.
Factories need energy-efficient buildings.
Agriculture needs data.
Growing cities need housing and commercial spaces that do not lock in unnecessary energy costs for decades.
Operating companies need better information about how resources move through their businesses.
As the portfolio grows, technology and sustainable infrastructure can become enabling layers across multiple sectors rather than isolated investments.
Building an African industrial system, company by company
This is why Africa Firm’s portfolio spans businesses that may initially appear unrelated.
A poultry farm.
A textile manufacturer.
A footwear factory.
A gold-trading business.
A technology company.
A real-estate platform.
A media company.
An education initiative.
Seen individually, they operate in different markets.
Seen together, they reflect a wider thesis: Africa should own more of the systems that convert its resources, labour, creativity and demand into lasting economic value.
That requires capital, but it also requires companies.
Companies with machines.
Companies with systems.
Companies with management teams.
Companies that employ people and develop skills.
Companies that sell finished products, not only raw inputs.
Companies that can eventually compete beyond their home markets.
Keep more of the chain
We do not believe every product consumed in Africa must be made in Africa, nor that every raw material must remain here.
Trade creates value.
Specialisation creates value.
Global capital creates value.
The objective is not isolation.
It is participation from a position of greater capability.
Africa should be able to decide where in the chain it competes — rather than occupying the lowest-value position by default.
That is the opportunity we see.
Not simply extracting more.
Not simply importing less.
But building the businesses, infrastructure and operating capacity that allow more value to be created here before a product reaches its final market.
The continent already has resources. The next chapter is about owning more of what happens to them.
That is where we intend to build.
