Finance Monthly Game Changers Awards 2017

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CONTACT
Geoff Miller - CEO of Afaafa
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FINANCEMONTHLY
GAME CHANGER AWARDS 2017
Afaafa is an investment and advisory business managed by husband
and wife team Geoff Miller and Sasha Kazantseva. The co-founders
came up with the philosophy and approach of the business whilst
working in London, Moscow, Singapore and Bangkok, during the
five years before the couple moved to Guernsey in 2011. The
Company was formally incorporated in 2013 and became the full
time employer of both in 2016.
Afaafa is actively engaged in developing the alternative finance
sector globally by providing a range of services and thought-
leadership as well as funding to businesses involved. It’s based in
Guernsey, Channel Islands to take advantage of the unique position
and on the island allowing for engagement between business,
government and regulators to help build Guernsey into a leading
alternative finance services hotspot.
Afaafa also invests in a range of other businesses in a variety of sectors
from genetics and semi-conductors to hospitality and medicine. The
common theme to the portfolio is to capture a leading position in a
nascent market and the monetisation of that position. The investee
businesses are also global in scope, reflecting the global outlook of
the founders.
The investment approach of Afaafa is pragmatic. The Company
believes that capital should align itself with the business plan and
vision of the founders of a business, not the other way round. In
addition to investment, Afaafa provides advisory services and its
members sit on a number of investee company Boards.
Equally important to Afaafa is the subject of Corporate Governance,
believing that great companies are built on proper Corporate
Governance structures from day one. Whilst Afaafa would not
expect a start-up business to have the same Corporate Governance
as a listed company, the basic principles are the same.
“Afaafa” is a Swahili word meaning “virtue” which represents the
founders’ vision to change the paradigm of modern business culture
and links back geographically to the place where Geoff and Sasha
originally met - successfully climbing Mt Kilimanjaro, Tanzania for
charity in 2006.
AREAS OF EXPERTISE
• Investor in early stage businesses
• Proven deal maker
• Global thought leader in alternative finance
• Successful turnaround manager
• Focused on finance and technology
nutrition recommendations, Anvil Semiconductor, a company looking to
develop silicon carbide power devices for the power electronics industry,
Wazoku, an idea management platform, as well as IslandMums.
The most recent investment Afaafa has made is in a business called Finance
for Guernsey, a company formed by Geoff Miller to look to provide finance
in Guernsey and in other offshore jurisdictions that have found the availability
of banking products and services severely curtailed in recent years, as
the larger banks have taken a “safety first” approach and reduced the
availability of everything from basic transactional banking to mortgages.
It is the stated intention of Finance for Guernsey to seek to set up a bank in
Guernsey to fill the gaps in the market, and the company is actively looking
at other jurisdictions as well. This fits with the model that has served Geoff
Miller well over the years, of doing the things that others choose not to,
because the rewards can be commensurately greater.
The past year has seen good results from the investments in the Afaafa
portfolio, and the capital return for 2016 is expected to be a little over 100%,
reflecting the progress of most of the businesses. However, the Company is
not expected to rest on its laurels in 2017, but continue to look to innovate
across a range of sectors.
Within the financials sphere Geoff Miller will be focusing on delivering within
the offshore banking sector, but also looking towards the next big theme
within the alternative finance space, which he believes is the emergence of
trade finance and receivables finance platforms globally. It fits the model of
being complex and unfashionable, but also has a number of factors coming
together to potentially make 2017 a year of great opportunity.
As the banks seek to reduce exposures perceived as ‘more risky’, and whilst
greater technology becomes available to digitise the archaic world of trade
finance and as capital requirements make trade finance and receivables
finance less attractive for banks, Miller believes that there will be tremendous
opportunities for those with the ability to help these emerging businesses
with their early stages of development. There are emerging businesses
around the world that are seeking to innovate within the trade finance and
receivables finance space. Miller, having guided other finance businesses
through the early stages of development over the past decade and with
a global network of contacts in alternative finance, is ideally placed to
optimise returns from the sector.