Not that long ago, capital was flooding into West African markets and private equity was no exception. New GPs were emerging and several firms were successfully raising capital, such as Ghana-based Fidelity Capital Partners’ US$35m fund, Togo-headquartered Cauris Management’s US$15m fund II, Nigerian firm Travant’s US$107m fundraising for a US$300m total and Advanced Finance & Investment Group’s US$100m to US$200m fund.

That was 18 months ago. At the time, by far the region’s largest economy, Nigeria, was forecasting GDP growth of as much as 9.5% for 2009, which demonstrates the extent to which the economies were starting to overheat: the longer term average for the region stood at around 5%.

As everywhere else in the world, the crisis has hit West Africa. GDP growth in Nigeria was down to a still healthy 5% for the second quarter of 2009, but way down on the earlier estimate. Companies on the Nigerian Stock Exchange meanwhile saw their market capitalisation fall 40% between the peak in 2008 and the trough in March 2009 as...

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