Project Promoters, Capital Providers Meet At Sterling Bank’s Agriculture Summit Africa

Agriculture project promoters will on Friday meet capital providers at a two-day Agriculture Summit Africa organised by Sterling Bank Plc in Abuja.

At the summit themed ‘Agriculture your piece of the Trillion Dollar Economy’, the project promoters will meet the capital providers during a session tagged ‘Deal Room’.

Speaking in a statement on Thursday, Director of the Nigeria Agribusiness Register, Roland Oroh, described a deal room as a “match-making avenue” for moving from talk to action in birthing new businesses or expanding existing businesses through capital infusion and other technical support measures.

Oroh said deal rooms in different parts of the world have helped in realising large scale projects within shortest possible time.

“Agribusiness Deal Rooms are beginning to be the way Summit and Conference organizers distinguish themselves from others in the marketplace. The Nigeria Agribusiness Register’s AgNet Events, the African Development Bank’s Africa Investment Forum and AGRA’s Annual Forum Deal Room 2019 are a few examples of Agribusiness focussed Deal Room events,” he said.

“Many watchers have noted that the Nigerian economy needs to grow a steady 5-7% annual growth rate to offer positive dividends to the common man on the street.

Oroh said the two-day summit seeks to actualize the $1 trillion African agribusiness economy plan by 2030.

He recalled that the Executive Director, Corporate and Investment Banking, Sterling Bank Plc, Mr. Yemi Odubiyi, had said during a press conference that the summit would address issues preventing the agricultural sector from attaining its potential.

Oroh said, “Conventional credit and lending to agriculture has not increased according to statistics from the Central Bank of Nigeria for obvious reasons of the high risk nature of many of the investment projects which makes lenders hesitant to fund projects. The poor quality of projects has also been listed as another hurdle.

“How do you match projects with unproven cash flow with risk capital and bring value chain actors who are producers and off takers to make commitments and drive transactions within an ecosystem is the goal of the Deal Room session of the Agriculture Africa Summit 2019.”

Oroh said the deal room is coordinated for Sterling Bank by the Nigeria Agribusiness Register – an agribusiness facilitation project offering deal room support services to Summit and Conference organizers amongst other services.

“Capital providers like Investment One Ven Cap, Norrenberger Financial Group, Jaiz Bank, ARM Agribusiness Fund, Palladium Impact Funds, and the Bank of Industry (BOI) amongst others have expressed interest to meet project promoters at the Deal Room. Also technical service providers including donor funded projects like the CNFA Agribusiness Investment Activity, GIZ, Propcom-maikafi amongst others will also be in attendance. A World Bank team from the private sector division have also expressed interest to attend and ‘observe’. Sterling Bank the only commercial lender in the room will be strongly represented by a team.

“The post event segment actually is where the real work begins – ‘the fortune is in the follow up’. The deals emanating from a deal room should be followed up till close out.

“We look forward to generating a sizable amount of commitments from the deal room tomorrow,” he said.