By the 254.ke Newsroom
Kenyan chief executives, including Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) boss Frank Mwiti, are in New York this week pitching global investors at Bullish Africa 2026, a half-day capital-markets summit held on September 22 on the sidelines of the 81st United Nations General Assembly. The event, organised by Wall Street Africa, brought together roughly 350 delegates from institutional investors, development finance institutions and African corporate leaders, with Kenya sending one of the largest national delegations in the room.
What Is Bullish Africa 2026?
Bullish Africa is an annual investment forum run by Wall Street Africa, the group behind the financial-news platform The Kenyan Wall Street. Now in its second year, it grew out of a smaller 2025 event, Bullish Kenya, which drew more than 110 executives from 15 countries to New York. This year’s edition widened the pitch from a single country to the whole continent, running from 2 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. at the New York Marriott Marquis.
The agenda mixed keynotes and fireside chats with sector roundtables and closed-door, one-on-one investor meetings, aimed less at broad “Africa rising” messaging and more at moving specific deals forward — public-private infrastructure and energy partnerships, IPO-ready firms seeking capital, and critical-minerals and logistics opportunities.
Which Kenyan Executives Attended?
The Kenyan contingent was built around the country’s capital-markets institutions rather than a single company. It included:
- Frank Mwiti — CEO, Nairobi Securities Exchange
- John Gachora — Group CEO, NCBA Group
- Yusuf Omari — CEO, Absa Bank Kenya
- John Mwendwa — CEO, Invest Kenya
- Mercy Randa — CEO, P&L Consulting Group
- Eric Asuma and Andrew Barden — CEO and President, Wall Street Africa (event organisers)
They shared the stage with international figures including Circle co-founder and CEO Jeremy Allaire, New York Stock Exchange relationship-management head Jessica Froats, and Dubai Future District Fund principal investor David Awad.
Why Is Kenya Pushing This Pitch Now?
The short answer, according to Mwiti, is that Kenyan and African markets already post strong returns but still struggle to attract the kind of patient, long-term capital that developed markets take for granted. The NSE returned 51.4% in US dollar terms in 2025 — among the best performances of any African exchange, though behind Nigeria and South Africa.
| Exchange | 2025 Return (USD terms) |
|---|---|
| Nigerian Exchange | 60.6% |
| FTSE/JSE All Share (South Africa) | 56.7% |
| Nairobi Securities Exchange (Kenya) | 51.4% |
| EGX30 (Egypt) | 49.9% |
As of September 22, 2026, the NSE’s benchmark index was trading around 245.9 points, up roughly 32% for the year so far — a rally that Kenyan officials argue isn’t translating into the deeper, longer-horizon foreign investment the market needs.
What Is the “Intelligence Gap” Kenyan CEOs Keep Mentioning?
Organisers and delegates framed Africa’s core problem as an “intelligence gap” rather than a returns gap. In plain terms: global investors already put money into markets with real political and currency risk elsewhere in the world, but they do it because they can measure and price that risk using reliable research, disclosure standards and governance data. Across many African markets, including Kenya’s, that kind of consistent analyst coverage and reporting is thinner, so investment committees struggle to justify commitments even when the underlying numbers are good.
“Africa doesn’t need a better story,” Wall Street Africa co-founder Eric Asuma said. “It needs better intelligence.”
What Is the NSE Actually Asking For?
Mwiti said the exchange is pursuing three tracks at once: aligning policy with government, courting long-term institutional money such as pension funds and sovereign wealth funds, and — the biggest piece, in his telling, at roughly 80% of the exchange’s effort — mobilising domestic capital already sitting with Kenyan and regional institutional investors. He also pointed to a gap in exit options for private equity investors, and said the NSE is working with the East Africa Venture Capital Association on a listed vehicle that would let PE firms exit existing investments and recycle that capital into new deals.
Does This Affect Ordinary Kenyan Investors?
Not directly or immediately — Bullish Africa is an institutional, invitation-only forum, not a retail event. But its stated goals feed back into things retail investors on the NSE’s current record run do care about: deeper secondary markets, more listed products, and more foreign capital chasing Kenyan equities and bonds over time, which tends to support liquidity and valuations. It also sits alongside a broader push to make Nairobi a magnet for capital-intensive investment, from the city’s data centre construction boom to new rules covering foreign traders operating in local markets.
Frequently Asked Questions
When and where was Bullish Africa 2026 held?
It ran on September 22, 2026, from 2 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. at the New York Marriott Marquis, timed to coincide with the 81st UN General Assembly week.
Who organises Bullish Africa?
Wall Street Africa, the company behind the financial-news outlet The Kenyan Wall Street and The Daily Brief newsletter, in its second year running the continent-wide format after 2025’s Kenya-focused pilot.
Which Kenyan companies and institutions were represented?
The Nairobi Securities Exchange, NCBA Group, Absa Bank Kenya, Invest Kenya and P&L Consulting Group all sent chief executives, alongside Wall Street Africa’s own Kenyan leadership.
Is Bullish Africa open to the public?
No. Attendance is by invitation and accreditation, targeted at institutional investors, corporate issuers, DFIs and market regulators rather than retail investors or the general public.
How did African markets perform in 2025?
Strongly across the board — Nigeria’s exchange returned 60.6% in dollar terms, South Africa’s FTSE/JSE All Share 56.7%, Kenya’s NSE 51.4% and Egypt’s EGX30 49.9%, with Africa the only region worldwide to see private capital deal activity grow in 2025.
Sources: Financial Fortune Media, The Kenyan Wall Street, and the Nairobi Securities Exchange.
