From Bloomberg

Tikowrie Capital Ltd., a Ghanaian money manager started by a former regulator, plans to establish the West African country’s first hedge fund.

“The appetite of investors in the country has grown over the years,” Tikowrie Executive Director Maxwell Gidi said by phone from Accra yesterday. “They’re looking for more sophisticated avenues of investment.”

Gidi, 37, said he quit his job as assistant manager of the broker-dealer department at Ghana’s Securities and Exchange Commission, where he worked for seven years, to start Tikowrie six months ago. The money manager, which opens the hedge fund to investors from tomorrow, seeks to raise more than 5 million cedis ($1.5 million) in the next three weeks and expand to have assets of 30 million cedis to 50 million cedis in three to five years, he said.

Tikowrie begins its fund as stocks in the world’s second-biggest cocoa producer head for their lowest returns in three years. The cedi has lost 29 percent of its value against the dollar this year, the worst among 24 African currencies tracked by Bloomberg. The 35-member GSE Composite Index (GGSECI) rose 10 percent this year after surging 79 percent last year and 24 percent in 2012.

Read more at Bloomberg