Overview and Requirements.pdf

Subscription to a Market Intelligence & Deal Sourcing Service for Sub-Saharan Africa

Overview and Requirements

Background:

The U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) is America’s development bank.

DFC partners with the private sector to finance solutions to the most critical challenges facing the developing world today. We invest across sectors that include energy, healthcare, critical infrastructure, and technology. DFC also provides financing for small businesses and women entrepreneurs in order to create jobs in emerging markets. DFC investments adhere to high standards and respects the environment, human rights, and worker rights.

Sub-Saharan Africa is a priority geography for the DFC, given the region’s development challenges and the U.S. Government’s foreign policy focus on increasing ties between the U.S.

and Africa, including business linkages, as reflected by the launch of initiatives such as Prosper Africa. DFC aims to significantly increase its pipeline of commitments in sub-Saharan Africa over the next three to five years. In order to do so, DFC must be able to efficiently identify investment opportunities in sub-Saharan Africa that align with its commercial, development and foreign policy objectives.

The Problem:

Market intelligence about companies operating in sub-Saharan Africa (particularly those in the middle market bracket), transaction opportunities, and deal data remains fragmented, difficult to access, less thoroughly covered by international publications and research services, as well as insufficiently tailored to the objectives of DFC.

Currently, to identify deals that involve new prospective clients, DFC largely relies upon ad hoc referrals from its existing networks, as well as costly business development engagements that typically involve international travel by several DFC personnel to the region, the vast majority of whom are based in Washington, DC.

This is not optimal for several reasons:

(1) It is time intensive;

(2) It’s cost-intensive, particularly to the extent that deal pre-screening and sourcing efforts involve international travel; and

(3) It is reactive rather than strategic.

With more detailed market intelligence and deal identification support in sub-Saharan Africa, particularly through a service that focuses on sub-Saharan Africa and covers unlisted companies, DFC would be able to:

(1) more efficiently identify viable opportunities in sub-Saharan Africa;

(2) abbreviate certain field-based deal due diligence on market conditions; and

(3) be more strategic in its deal sourcing.

As a result, DFC could realize increased development impact, facilitate achievement of US foreign policy objectives, and yield more returns for the US taxpayer through more cost-effective conduct of operations.

To complement and expand current information and research services, the DFC requires a subscription to a market intelligence and deal sourcing service that covers sub-Saharan Africa.

Requirements:

The service platform must have the following basic features:

• Commercial off-the-shelf system (COTS) o System must have ability to run sector or market-specific searches (see below) o System must cover at least 10 unique major markets in sub-Saharan Africa from amongst the western (Nigeria, Senegal, Ivory Coast, Ghana), eastern (Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania, Ethiopia), and southern (South Africa, Mozambique, Zambia, Angola, Namibia, Botswana) regions.

o System must have depth of coverage across sectors in sub-Saharan Africa, with an emphasis on critical infrastructure, agriculture, financial services, and healthcare

• Accessible through the Internet

• Available 7 days a week with minimal downtime.

• Ability to create, launch and manage dynamically modifiable virtual or digital deal calls in line with DFC criteria and parameters o Ability to generate real-time reports of results

• An advanced user interface that enables the experienced user to carefully control the search concepts through the use of:

o proximity connectors that determine adjacency/distance between words and concepts.

o truncation of short word stems.

o Boolean logic (AND, OR, NOT) to formulate strategies.

• Ability to view, download or print search results in a variety of display formats

• Capability to create, store and run reports and alerts

• Capability to store information for future use.

• Access to current and archival content

• A Help Desk to provide basic system and advanced subject support

The service platform will be used to:

• Expediently identify relevant companies and transaction opportunities in Sub-Saharan

Africa that align with DFC priorities for the region through customizable digital deal sourcing or digital “deal rooms”;

• Provide market trends and transaction information for markets in sub-Saharan Africa across a variety of sectors, including but not limited to critical infrastructure, agriculture, financial services, and healthcare, and including coverage of a number of major western (Nigeria, Senegal, Ivory Coast, Ghana), eastern (Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania, Ethiopia), and southern (South Africa, Mozambique, Zambia, Angola, Namibia, Botswana) African markets.

o Data and corporate profiles of companies operating in sub-Saharan Africa must include privately held businesses and middle-market sized entities

The platform will be used by DFC Staff (up to 5 unique users) covering sub-Saharan Africa, including from the Office of Strategic Initiatives, the Structured Finance and Insurance department, Office of Development Credit, and/or the Investment Funds Department. These User ID’s will also be transferable in the case that staffing coverage changes.

Use of this resource would be

• On a regular basis (weekly or more frequently); and

• In support of deal origination and due diligence efforts