Francis
Hi, Tia.
Tia
Hi, Francis.
Francis
Tia, great to be with you tonight. You run Change Global Investments, top-ranked emerging-markets investment funds. Your results speak for themselves: 20% 5-year annualized gross returns and 10% standard deviation.
But you're not the usual PM sitting in an office, right? You spend a lot of time on the ground. You've traveled—what, more than 200,000 miles last year? How is that even possible? You're versatile in small and big countries in emerging markets, in Africa as well as in my backyard. I understand we're both big fans of Nigeria, right?
Tia
Yes, we are.
Francis
Why do you do all this?
1. Ground Presence Drives Alpha
Tia
Francis, great to share the stage with you. As you know, this is not a job for me. This is a passion. I get to drive alpha every single day in the most inefficient asset class. Emerging markets are growing, they're thriving, they're hugely inefficient, and there are always ways to make money.
But to do that, you have to be on the ground. You have to visit and engage with corporate management like yourself. We travel with our team relentlessly, and we do that through the up-and-down cycles. You also know that I'm from Eastern Europe, so I represent the developing world, and it's my personal obsession to make sure those markets fulfill their price potential over the course of my career.
And, Francis, back to you.
Francis
Yep.
Tia
You're not the typical CEO either. You left a very successful consulting career to move to Africa 15 years ago, in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire, which is one of my favorite places to visit. You did such a phenomenal job running the country unit you were assigned to that you were appointed CEO of Jumia about 2 or 2½ years ago.
Now, I'm not sure how you do what you do. You're on the ground building e-commerce from the ground up, literally, in places like Nigeria, Egypt, and Ghana. Simultaneously, you're running this U.S.-publicly listed company.
2. Africa's Retail Markets Are Growing
Francis
Yeah, quite an adventure. On a personal note, it's obviously a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to build something—a massive business—from the ground up in Africa, in an environment that I find extremely stimulating.
The business opportunity is everything to me here. I operate in e-commerce, which is glorified retail, tech-enabled. If you look at Africa, those markets on the retail side are the last markets on Earth that are still growing, mostly driven by demographics. At the same time, these are also the last markets on Earth that are not saturated by supply because of massive inefficiencies in local supply chains, operational issues, and so on.
Now that the technological enablers are ready, e-commerce can solve those issues. With e-commerce, we can radically transform the way consumers are served across Africa and drive outsized returns along the way.
So, that's the story. That's the mission for me. But one step back from Africa, back to emerging markets: EMs have been outperforming earlier this year, right? Is it just a trade? What's your perspective?
3. Emerging Markets Enter A Long Cycle
Tia
Emerging markets are up 20% this year. They were up 30% last year. Emerging markets are doing very well, and this is absolutely not a trade. This is the right time to be investing in emerging markets, and I've been doing this long enough to remember that emerging markets can outperform the U.S. market.
In the early 2000s, emerging markets outperformed the S&P by 10% a year over the course of 10 years.
Francis Dufay
Yes.
Tia
Yes, yes, it's possible. This time, we think that this cycle is going to be longer and more meaningful. The reason for that is improving fundamentals across the board, supported by very attractive valuations and very, very favorable positioning.
Speaking of travel, as you said, we are everywhere, and it's true. If we travel to Asia, we see massive investment in AI technology. In Europe, there is a resurgence in investment in infrastructure and defense spending. Latin America is benefiting from this incredible commodities boom and global supply-chain realignment.
All of that is happening when valuations are really, really low. Just as a reference, emerging markets are trading at 10 times forward P/E, which is half the U.S. valuation, with twice the earnings growth. On the positioning point, I think the best reference would be the big picture: emerging and frontier markets account for 85% of the global population and close to half of the global economy, yet they're just over 10% of global market cap.
So, this is the start. It's going to be a long cycle, and this is the right time to be buying. Africa.
Francis Dufay
Yes.
Tia
I spoke a lot about Africa.
4. Africa Enters A New Macro Cycle
Francis Dufay
A little focus on Africa. What we see on the ground closely matches what you're describing, right? What we see on the ground in Africa, which is more like frontier within EM, is that we see very positive trends happening.
I will pick only 2: very long-term and mid-term. In the very, very long term, demographics—the shift—is absolutely massive, right? From 1.5 billion people today living in Africa to 2.5 billion in just 25 years from now. This is going to completely change the face not just of the continent, but the face of the world. If you're targeting the local consumer, it's quite a game changer.
Only last year, in 2025, to give you an idea, more babies were born in Nigeria alone than across all of Europe. For my business, it's an absolute game changer.
And then, on more medium-term trends, I deeply believe we've entered a new macro cycle for Africa and a lot of emerging markets. That's marked by much greater currency stability. Most of you know that from 2021–2022 through 2024, a lot of emerging markets have gone through very, very tough times, especially in Africa, with massive currency volatility and so on.
But under pressure, local governments have taken great, pro-business economic reforms, and we now have a much better environment in which to operate as compliant companies in those markets. A great example is Nigeria. Nigeria was in a tough situation 3 or 4 years back. President Tinubu has delivered reforms and an economic agenda that nobody thought was actually possible in this country.
At the same time, they completely transformed their energy sector with a new refinery built by Dangote. They've managed to stabilize the currency, and this is creating a much better business environment for all companies. This is something we see across Africa, across all the markets where we operate.
Greater currency stability is going to be helped by a softer U.S. dollar, if we believe in that scenario, and it's going to be great for business.
Tia
Well, it's already playing out, if I may add, because I'm the investor here. Emerging markets are doing well, but frontier markets are doing even better. As a reference, Nigeria, one of your biggest countries of exposure, is up over 170% over the past year.
Francis
Yeah, it's been great.
Tia
So, this is already playing out, and Nigeria is still trading at less than 7 times price-to-earnings.
Francis
An amazing catch-up in this case. Yeah, yeah.
Tia
Across all emerging markets, what are your key themes at the moment?
5. Three Themes Shape EM Investing
Tia
A lot of opportunities exist across emerging and frontier markets. I would say that there are 3 main themes that we're investing in today: 1 is capital markets, 2 is commodities, and 3 is technology.
In the capital markets, we're investing in local stock exchanges, brokers, and asset managers. This is clearly a play on the new bull market in the developing world. It's a play on rising liquidity, as well as the opening of the IPO window. The IPO window is literally opening up for the first time in 15 years in a sustainable way.
For example, last year, 4 of the top IPO markets globally were in emerging markets. This year, as we speak, we're actually in the largest and first IPO out of Uzbekistan. So, there's a lot going on in this sector.
In commodities, we like the enablers of the new global supply chain, particularly in Latin America. In technology, of course, we're invested in the big global players in foundry—TSMC—and memory—Samsung in Korea.
But we're just as excited about some of the domestic, localized tech players. Over the years, I've been investing in Africa for 20 years now, and historically the only way we could access those markets was through the more traditional economy: banking, telecommunications, beverages, BBTs.
Now we have an opportunity to invest in the new economy. We are an investor in Jumia, and I think that you're probably the best person, since you are driving the growth of e-commerce in Africa, to speak about the sector.
6. Jumia Wins By Serving Reality
Francis
Yeah, thank you. We're happy to provide a bit more diversity in investment opportunities across Africa.
I very often get the question of whether Africa was ready for e-commerce, which was the wrong way to ask the question. Definitely, there has been demand, and consumers have been ready for e-commerce for a long time. The enablers are in place. It's not easy to operate—there's friction, it's a challenging market, and so on—but you can actually operate in Africa, and you can operate e-commerce.
The real challenge to building a successful e-commerce platform in Africa has always been actually understanding the market—the real market—and embracing it as it is. Let me explain. My core customer makes between $200 and $400 a month, and he lives in a small town. That's the reality of the lower middle class of Africa.
That's where you can reach hundreds of millions of potential customers, drive volumes, and—I insist—also drive profitability. It may sound counterintuitive, but it's actually perfectly feasible. If you acknowledge and accept that this is your market—not the market you're dreaming of, but the real one—then you build a value proposition accordingly. And that's how it works well in Africa and in emerging markets.
In our case, what we did at Jumia was build an amazing value proposition heavily focused on value, value for money, and basic, reliable service. Nothing fancy that customers cannot pay for. In a country like Nigeria, as I like to say, reliability is luxury. You deliver basic service in a very affordable, cheap way—and I mean cheap in a favorable way—with a focus on quality of execution and being maniacal about cost management, because nobody can pay for waste in those markets. You can make it to scale and profitability. Execution is tough. You need to understand the markets, but it's also a great barrier to entry in favor of local incumbents like us.
Tim
Amazing. So, we're at Sohn, we need to talk about stocks, right? What are your top picks?
7. Three Regions Offer Stock Ideas
Francis
Top picks. I have 3 ideas across 3 regions. I'll leave the 4th region to you. I'm going to speak about Kiwoom Securities in Korea. I'm going to speak about YPF in Argentina and the Warsaw Stock Exchange in Poland.
Starting with Kiwoom Securities in Korea, this is the number-one retail broker in the country, and Korea is red-hot. That market is up over 70% this year after being up 70% last year. This year, what's different is that the Korean retail investor is getting involved, and part of that is repatriation of assets from the U.S. stock market to the local Korean market because of tax incentives that the government proposed. The new catalyst going forward is the introduction of the omnibus account, which, for the very first time, will allow American retail investors to access the local Korean market. The stock is trading at 8x P/E, 1.5x book value, and has a 20% return on equity. So, we think this is a terrific opportunistic idea.
Moving on to Europe, I like the Warsaw Stock Exchange. This is the stock exchange in Poland, and it's also the largest stock exchange in Central and Eastern Europe. This is a play on the recovery of the European capital markets. In Poland's case in particular, the government is focused on moving liquidity from bank accounts to the stock market. Poland is truly an outlier. Over 50% of household assets are parked in cash deposits, and the government intends, by the end of this year, to enact legislation to move part of that liquidity into the stock market. So, this is a long-term, very high-quality story.
And lastly, YPF in Argentina. YPF is the national oil and gas champion, and this is really a story about the development of Vaca Muerta. Vaca Muerta is an up-and-coming, phenomenal shale resource—in fact, the 4th-largest shale oil resource and the 2nd-largest shale gas resource globally. YPF is the absolute dominant developer of the field. They have over 40% of the concession acreage, and as such, they have a very strong production profile mapped out. They're set to grow production by 25% a year through 2030. Now, that stock is available at 3x EV/EBITDA, which is an absolute historical rock-bottom valuation. And I think it's exactly the stock that we like: low valuation, high-growth profile, overlooked, under-owned, and something we're super excited about. I know you want to go.
Tim
I let you pick. Tell us about your stock pick. You did have a blowout quarter last week, so congratulations on that. And I'm just so excited that you get to share the investment case for Jumia.
8. Jumia Makes Africa Investable
Francis
Yes. Let me get started. Jumia is the dominant e-commerce platform across Africa. For investors, it's the best way to tap the rise of African consumers at scale. We're actually investable. It's a liquid stock listed on the New York Stock Exchange. There's plenty of liquidity to build or exit real positions, which is something worth mentioning for African coverage.
We have already diversified. We're across 8 of the biggest markets in Africa. We're benefiting very clearly from strong structural tailwinds. I mentioned demographics, tech enablers, and the new macro cycle. But most importantly, through over 10 years of painful—I will say—operational learning, we've built an amazing product-market fit, which is, I believe, the hardest thing to achieve in emerging markets, especially for the unique profile of our consumers.
And we've built real barriers to entry. The moat is real, and it compounds with scale. It means we've built unique sourcing capabilities for fashion, beauty, electronics, consumer goods, and so on, mostly direct from China. We've built and grown, and we fully control a whole distribution network to reach smaller cities across those 8 countries. And we own the most famous and most respected e-commerce brand across the continent.
All that turns out to be extremely hard, extremely expensive, and really impossible to replicate for new players who want to come and eat our lunch, basically. We've been competing with the likes of Temu, and we're winning. It's very clear. It's hard to overcome those barriers that we've been building.
But most importantly, as you've just mentioned, it's all starting to translate into numbers. So, we've been able to show quarter after quarter that we have a clear path towards scale and profitability, both at the same time. However, like many emerging markets—and like all of our continent—our stock remains kind of misunderstood and underrated. I like to see it this way, but not for long, as the results will speak for themselves.
In short, I think this is likely MercadoLibre or Shopee 20 years ago. And right now, as an investor, you can get involved at a valuation that's below $1 billion. That's quite an opportunity. Jumia is the only listed, liquid company that is already able to tap the rise of African consumers at scale. We have a very clear head start and massive upside potential ahead of us.
Tim
Well done. Well done, Francis. Merci beaucoup.
Francis
Avec plaisir.
Tim
It's been absolutely a pleasure to share the stage with you here today. Thank you so much for that. And I'm so happy we had an opportunity to showcase our enthusiasm, our on-the-ground conviction in these markets. This is the time to be investing in the emerging and frontier markets. And we're so looking forward to welcoming more allocators and more investors to join our journey.
Francis
Thank you, Tim.
Tim
Thank you.