‘Nigeria’s challenges create opportunities for unique value creation’

Chairman of Parthian Partners Limited and renowned management expert, Adedotun Sulaiman, has described Nigeria as a market with a unique opportunity to create value and grow wealth.

He said this at the investment company’s 10th anniversary held in Lagos at the weekend, stressing that the success story of Parthian exemplifies the huge opportunities offered by what many people consider challenges in Nigeria.

According to him, the company has “made money” for the promoters in the past 10 years whereas the greatest value is the opportunity it has offered Nigerians to access the global market to grow their investment.

Sulaiman recalled how his first meeting with Oluseye Olusoga, who turned out to be the pioneer Chief Executive of the company, 10 years ago, stressing that it took the management team’s creativity, dedication, handwork and willingness to learn to turn what used to be a mere idea to a great company today, hoping that the next decade would be more eventful for the company.

Olusoga disclosed that the average age of his team is 27 years with most of the employees sourced from the University of Lagos, Covenant University, Babcock University and other local institutions, showing the enormous potential of Nigerian youths.

In the next five years, he said the company would focus on providing financial services to tackle food scarcity, saying “food security is a major issue in Nigeria and other countries”. He said the company would be working with farmers in funding fertilisers and other inputs in the coming years.

The investment banker said Nigeria has a huge opportunity for growth and expansion, stressing that his team would continue to explore areas of intervention to support economic development.

Nigeria’s first inter-dealer brokerage firm, Parthian Partners is a player in fixed income, structured finance, equities and financial integration, serving both the demand and supply side of fixed income markets by providing access, price discovery and liquidity.

Recently, FMDQ ratified the admission of its N20 billion commercial paper (CP) into the FMDQ exchange platform, making it the first inter-dealer broker in Nigeria to issue and successfully redeem an N20 billion CP on FMDQ. The instrument is part of efforts to make it a leading player in the emerging African market.