PRESIDIO IN THE NEWS
Dec 2021
Radical-Transparency
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André Tonkin
PARTNER
- 14 years investing experience in equities and fixed income, with 8 years’ experience in African structured trade finance.
- Between 2013 and 2018, while working as an independent consultant, raised over $500m for various emerging market private debt funds. The money was raised from family offices, sovereign funds and institutions.
- André has previously worked for Old Mutual, Towers Watson, Milkwood Capital and the Peregrine hedge fund group
- A qualified UK actuary who has earned the CAIA and FRM certification.
- Fluent in English and Afrikaans, with conversational competency in German and Spanish. Can also speak, read and write basic Arabic.
- Other interests include organic farming and mentoring and sponsoring talented high school children from his home town in South Africa.
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Gary Taylor
HEAD OF CREDIT
- 31 years of banking experience across sub-Saharan Africa and the CIS country states of Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan.
- Vast experience in risk management with a focus on credit risk predominantly in the corporate and investment banking sphere.
- Has worked for ING Bank, Citibank, Standard Bank, Barclays/ABSA.
- Level 2 Senior Credit Officer with Citibank and chaired the most senior credit approval committee at Standard Bank and Ecobank.
- In his last role as Head of Credit for Ecobank he was responsible for the review and overhaul of the groups Credit Operating Model.
- Has a Bachelor of Commerce (Hons.) degree from UNISA with majors in Risk Management and Business Management.
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Thembela Mandla
CLIENT DIRECTOR
- Over 20 years of financial services industry experience
- Spent 2.5 years as Trainee at Syfrets/Nedcor Investment Bank
- 2.5 years institutional investment consulting experience at Alexander Forbes Asset Consultants
- Sales and distribution role for 7 years at Old Mutual Corporate
- Over 9 years’ experience in sales and client retention at Futuregrowth Asset Management
- B Com in Financial Management, National Higher Diploma in Management Practice
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Justin Murray
HEAD OF ESG & IMPACT, PARTNER
- Over 13 years’ experience in African agricultural finance.
- A seasoned leader with experience in emerging markets, financial management, project management and development finance.
- As CEO of Akwandze Agricultural Finance oversaw the investment of over R1.4bn into small scale sugar growers in Mpumlanga. Each year these farmers delivered almost 14% of South Africa’s sugar cane crop.
- Played regional level rugby for two South African provinces.
- Has an MBA from the University of Oxford, a Masters in Commerce from the University of Cape Town and Honours Degree in Economics from Rhodes University.
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Amin Manekia
PARTNER
- 32 years of banking experience, primarily at Citi in the Africa, New York, Asia, the Middle East and Eastern Europe.
- Amin has also held senior roles at Samba (Saudi Arabia) and Ecobank (West Africa).
- Amin holds a BSc (Summa Cum Laude) from Boston University.
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Rafael Vahdat
PARTNER
- Over 15 years’ experience in emerging markets, with a particular focus on Latin America.
- Specialises in trade finance, impact investments and mezzanine debt.
- Has worked for The Royal Bank of Scotland, Itau, GEMCORP and ABN AMRO.
- Speaks English, Portuguese, Spanish, & Farsi. Also has working knowledge in French.
- Has an MBA from London Business School and a Bachelor of Business Administration from the University of Texas in Austin. Spent one year of the BBA studying at FGV in Brazil.
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Steve Crompton
CREDIT ANALYST
- Steve has over 13 years' experience in a variety of investment and financial consulting roles.
- His experience includes credit consulting work for the four largest South African banks as well as a variety of large UK and African Banks.
- Has worked for the longest running African hedge fund and has extensive experience in equity valuation, derivative valuation and complex financial modelling.
- Has worked at PwC, Peregrine Capital, Scotstone Fund Managers (co-founded) and as a private consultant.
- Is a qualified Actuary (FIA) and holds a CAIA and a Bachelor of Business Science.
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Younes Oukhay
ADVISOR
- Younes has over 14 years of corporate finance and investing experience in equity and credit, both in developed and emerging markets.
- He has previously worked at Accenture, J.P. Morgan (M&A), and Helios Investment Partners (private equity and credit investing).
- Younes is visiting finance lecturer at the HEC Paris MBA program and ISCAE Casablanca University.
- He is fluent in English, French and Arabic, with conversational level in Spanish.
- An engineer by background with a MSc in Telecommunications, he also holds a MSc in business from HEC Paris.
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Jessica Leon
CREDIT ANALYST
- Jessica hold a Bachelors in Business Management and Finance with a Minor in Mathematics from Manhattanville College in New York.
- She specializes in structuring Trade Finance facilities.
- Has more than 3 years of experience in emerging markets, with a focus in Latin America.
- Jessica has managed distressed accounts and assisted in the process of recuperation of investments on-site.
- She was a Summer 2015 Intern in the Office of Risk Management at the Inter-American Development Bank.
- Jess is fluent in Spanish and English
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Julia Roy
HEAD OF ADMINISTRATION
- Julia started her career on the Unilever Graduate Programme.
- Moved into finance and worked at First National Bank as an Economic Analyst followed by Rand Merchant Bank as the Treasury Economist.
- Manages the administration of deals for Origin and fills a reporting role in support of Credit and ESG and Impact monitoring.
- Has a Bachelor of Commerce degree with majors in Finance and Economics.
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Charisse White
ADMINISTRATION
- Has a background in project management and entrepreneurship.
- Speaks English and Afrikaans.
- Has a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of Pretoria.
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Dharmesh Dayal
CLIENT DIRECTOR
- Dharmesh has over 20 years of financial services experience.
- 14 years of experience in asset management sales and distribution
- An institutional investment consultant for 9 years with Alexander Forbes.
- A proven track record of busines development and management in Africa with Old Mutual Corporate and Old Mutual Investment Group.
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UMAIR MUHAMMAD
CREDIT, RECOVERY AND DUE DILIGENCE
- Umair has more than 14 years of financial and commercial experience, including investment management, corporate advisory, operational & financial due diligence, and audit.
- He has successfully traced and led the asset recovery in fraud cases involving multimillion-dollar litigation spanning several jurisdictions (UK, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt). Umair has held positions in various organizations including, Head of advisory at an investment bank in Saudi Arabia, Investment Manager at a family office in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and Senior Auditor at EY.
- Umair is an Associate Member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW) and Associate Member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Pakistan (ICAP)
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OSCAR CASTAÑEDA
ORIGINATION & STRUCTURING
- Oscar is a Latin America finance specialist with more than 5 years of experience in Corporate, investment and development banking.
- He started his career in 2016 in a one year internship program at Citibank Peru being part of the team of Treasury and trade solutions.
- He subsequently worked in the Venture Capital team of COFIDE, Peru's official development bank where he was involved in the structuring of the first Fund of funds for Startups in Peru working together with IDB and the local Economic Ministry. After that Oscar continued working in Corporate Banking at GNB Bank (Colombia) and then in one of FIMBANK's investment funds overseeing a Latin American Portfolio.
- He has a BBA from Pacifico University (Peru) and a Project Finance certificate from ESAN (Peru).
- His role at Origin is to find creditworthy exporters in Latin America that would benefit from Origin's capital and expertise.
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Zama Nkosi
STUDENT TRAINEE
- Zama has a degree in Management Studies from UCT.
- He joined the Origin team in February 2021, as Credit Analyst.
- He is fluent in siSwati, Xitsonga and English.
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Ndashe Musonda
CREDIT ANALYST
- Ndashe joined Origin in March 2022 as a credit analyst.
- Ndashe has over 3 years’ experience as Portfolio Analyst with a passion for Impact Investment. He developed an extensive and diverse skillset in Structured Trade Finance whilst working for an Alternative Investment Fund (AUM – $1.4 Billion) focused on Trade Finance in Africa. He helped with deal origination, restructuring and day to day portfolio management.
- Ndashe has a Bachelor of Economics (Honours) from the University of Cape Town.
- Ndashe is an active golfer.
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The Andean region
Trade Flow
Exports ores, wool and fabrics, nuts, bananas, meat, coffee, coconuts, spices, wine, fish and vegetables to North America.
Exports ores, wool, nuts, bananas, coffee, coconuts, spices, wine, fish and vegetables to Europe. The key buyers are the Netherlands, UK and Spain.
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Brazil
Trade Flow
Exports crude oil, minerals, soya, sugar, meat, coffee, rice, corn, fruit and legumes to North America, Europe and Asia.
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East Africa
Trade Flow
Exports tea, coffee, cut flowers, fruits, nuts, processed foods, live plants, legumes, pepper, resins to mainly Europe and the Middle East.
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Southern Africa
Trade Flow
Exports nuts, grain, soya, citrus, berries, stone fruit, wine and minerals to Asia.
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Southern Africa
Trade Flow
Imports cars and other manufactured goods from Asia