Arqaam Capital is planning to launch an Africa fund in the second quarter of 2014, according to Amin el-Kholy, managing director of asset management.

The fund, which will focus on the entire African continent, excluding South Africa, will include 20 to 25 stocks. Arqaam has secured commitments to manage up to $50m, though it could initially start with a lower amount, depending on the number of suitable opportunities identified.

“We’re looking bottom-up at the right opportunities. We’ve identified a number of companies that structurally meet the requirements we have. We try to avoid companies that move with the direction of commodity prices, our choices will be based on domestic drivers instead,” says El-Kholy.

“One of the issues currently in Africa is you’re leaning more to the growth at a reasonable price type of company, as opposed to the pure value. There’s been a lot of interest in Africa and the sheer weight of money flowing into its markets has increased the valuations, somewhat.”

At a later stage, Arqaam also plans to invest in frontier Asia, including Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and possibly Indonesia.

For other asset classes it is looking at forming a frontier markets, local currency, fixed-income fund, focused on a range of frontier markets instead of a particular region.