Brice Beumo, previously a senior associate at Renaissance Capital who focused on developing specialty finance business initiatives in francophone Africa, has joined Denmark-based investment manager Danfonds as an independent director of its Frontier Market Fund.

Established in 2005 with offices in Copenhagen and Martofte, Danfonds specialises in frontier investments, which it defines as where returns are driven by the misperception of risk. Its offshore funds aimed at sophisticated and institutional investors aim to make high risk, high return investments, both listed and unlisted.

The Frontier Market Fund focuses on fledgling capital markets where the yield curve has not been fully filled out, making it hard to price risk correctly. Danfonds says frontier markets represent one of the least understood and researched investment areas, as well as one of the most exciting from an return perspective.

Beumo joined Renaissance Capital after a spell as a credit analyst for Iroko Securities. Danfonds expects his experience in African debt capital market origination and francophone Africa to enhance the advice and oversight that the fund receives from its board.

Danfonds says its strategy is to establish counterparty and custodial arrangements in frontier markets and to select, screen and value companies that would otherwise be difficult to monitor. Shorting and hedging will be confined to index-related products in the developed markets of South Africa, Turkey, Russia and Brazil.