Cotonou: Capital Reach Forum – First Edition

Background

Between a company seeking to grow and an investor ready to provide funding, more than capital is often missing: a common language, appropriate structuring, and a clear pathway to the market. As the financing needs of businesses, infrastructure, and economic transformation continue to increase, the challenge is now to channel available resources more effectively toward projects capable of creating value, structuring more transactions, and supporting companies in accessing capital markets.

Within the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU/UEMOA), capital markets have experienced sustained growth, confirming their increasingly important role in financing regional economies. In 2025, the BRVM (Regional Stock Exchange) recorded a market capitalization of CFAF 24,781.3 billion, representing 18.37% of the Union’s GDP, while CFAF 4,204.7 billion was raised on the regional primary market. At the same time, financial inclusion has continued to expand, with 248 million mobile money accounts recorded across the Union in 2024 (+18.99%), while diaspora remittances to Sub-Saharan Africa reached USD 54 billion.

It is from this conviction that the Capital Reach Forum was created: to make capital markets more understandable, more accessible, and more useful for African businesses. Designed as a platform for dialogue, knowledge sharing, and practical networking, the Forum aims to bring together project promoters, investors, banks, brokerage firms (SGIs), asset management companies, public institutions, and guarantee mechanisms to facilitate the development of concrete transactions that support the real economy.

Dates: The first edition of the Capital Reach Forum will take place on 26–27 October 2026 in Cotonou, Benin.

Theme: “Local African Finance: Making Capital Markets More Accessible, More Useful, and More Transaction-Oriented.”

Organizer

The event is an initiative of Africaine de Gestion et d’Intermédiation (SGI-AGI), a brokerage firm committed to fostering a new momentum for African capital markets.

According to its Chief Executive Officer, Theodore GANFLE:

“Resources are available, but they need to be better directed toward businesses and projects capable of transforming our economies. The real challenge is to make capital markets more transparent, more accessible, and more valuable for African companies. Through the Capital Reach Forum, we aim to create a platform where business leaders, investors, banks, brokerage firms, institutions, and guarantee providers can engage in practical discussions, structure tailored solutions, and facilitate financing that serves the real economy.”

Four Key Themes

The Forum will focus on four strategic pillars:

• African Capital Markets: From Ambition to Concrete Financing, exploring regulatory issues, regional integration, and SME financing;
• From Mandate to Closing: Structuring Transactions and Mobilizing the Right Investors, highlighting best practices in financial structuring, due diligence, and transaction execution;
• Expanding the Investor Base Sustainably, through greater engagement of the African diaspora, retail investors, wealth management professionals, and impact investors;
• Accelerating Deals and Financing Transformation, with discussions on guarantee mechanisms, private debt, patient capital, and infrastructure financing.

Participants

The Capital Reach Forum stands out for its practical and transaction-oriented approach. Beyond keynote speeches and panel discussions, it seeks to create meaningful opportunities for investors, companies, banks, asset managers, brokerage firms, and regulators to connect and generate tangible business opportunities.

The Forum will bring together representatives from public authorities, regulatory bodies, banks, brokerage firms (SGIs), asset management companies, institutional investors, insurance companies, pension funds, corporations, fintech companies, entrepreneurs, members of the African diaspora, as well as technical and financial partners.

Objective

By fostering dialogue and collaboration among these stakeholders, the Capital Reach Forum aims to make African capital markets more accessible, more effective, and increasingly oriented toward facilitating transactions that contribute to the growth of the real economy.