AFEX emerges Financial Times top commodities firm in Africa

BY ONOME AMUGE

AFEX, Nigeria’s leading commodities market player, has emerged as Africa’s fastest growing agriculture and commodities company as well as the third fastest growing company in the continent in the Financial Times (FT) 2022 ranking of Africa’s best performing companies.

The Financial Times first-ever Africa annual ranking, was organised in collaboration with Statista, a leading business data research firm. It comprises innovative, modern and fast-growing companies that are the driving force of the continent’s economy in the 21st century.

The 2022 list features 75 companies with the strongest revenue growth in Africa between 2017 and 2020, selected from thousands of entrants across the world’s second most populated continent.

The world’s leading global business publication placed AFEX at the summit of the agriculture and commodities category following the company’s remarkable revenue growth, addition of over 350,000 digital farmers to its workbench platform and attainment of the first Asset-Backed Commercial Paper listed on a commodities exchange in Africa, achievements recorded despite the challenging business conditions fuelled by the Covid-19 pandemic.

AFEX, renowned as Nigeria’s first private sector commodities exchange with over 126 warehouses and a storage capacity of 120,000 metric tonnes, was also ranked first place in the list of fastest-growing companies in Africa’s largest economy.

Ayodeji Balogun, chief executive officer of AFEX, expressed delight to have come top of the FT’s Africa’s fastest-growing Agriculture & Commodities list, describing it as a significant accomplishment in recognition of the company’s efforts over the past eight years.

According to Balogun, though the global pandemic has proved challenging over the past two years, the company has worked extremely hard to improve Africa’s commodity market, employing innovations such as its Electronic Warehouse Receipts System (e-WRS), and blockchain technology to help farmers access credit safely.

Widening access and creating a more inclusive and profitable ecosystem that works for everyone has fuelled the company’s ambition to expand into new markets, Balogun further said.

On the company’s progressive expansions, he said: “We have recently expanded to Kenya, and will scale up further with an imminent launch in Côte D’Ivoire. This is fantastic and keeps us on track with our core mission of helping Africa feed herself and providing employment for farmers.”