General Investing >> Money Manager Interviews >> August 16, 2017

Exposing Investors to Africa’s Growth Story

Thoms, Peter C.
Peter C. Thoms, CFA, is Founder and Portfolio Manager of Africa Capital Group LLC. He has a nearly lifelong association with and interest in Africa. As the son of a U.S. foreign service officer, he attended high school in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in the early 1980s. In the decades since then, he has traveled independently throughout Africa, covering tens of thousands of miles over land through dozens of countries. Mr. Thoms is also the Founder and Managing Member of Orion Capital Management LLC, a registered investment adviser — RIA — based in Coronado, California. The firm, founded in 2002, is an independent fiduciary with a diverse base of clients that includes individuals, families, trusts, nonprofit organizations and corporate retirement plans. Earlier in his investment career, Mr. Thoms was Co-Portfolio Manager and Research Analyst in New York City at PIMCO Equity Advisors, L.P., a unit of Pacific Investment Management Company LLC — PIMCO — of Newport Beach, California. From 1999 to early 2002, he was a research analyst for the $1.5 billion PIMCO Growth Fund, a large-cap growth mutual fund, and the $1.5 billion PIMCO Target Fund, a midcap growth mutual fund. In the later half of his tenure, he was also the Co-Portfolio Manager of the PIMCO Growth & Income Fund. Before joining PIMCO, Mr. Thoms served as an investment analyst at Federated Global Investment Management, the New York City-based global investing unit of Pittsburgh-based Federated Investors. He analyzed investments for the Federated Global Equity Income Fund, the Federated World Utility Fund and two pension accounts that were benchmarked against global equity indexes. Mr. Thoms holds the Chartered Financial Analyst designation and is a member of the CFA Institute. He earned his Master of Business Administration degree from the Darden Graduate School of Business Administration at the University of Virginia in 1998 and his Bachelor of Arts degree in international and comparative political studies from Hamilton College in 1989. From 1989 to 1993, Mr. Thoms served as a U.S. naval flight officer aboard the P-3 Orion, an anti-submarine warfare and surveillance aircraft. He was stationed at Naval Air Station, Barbers Point, Hawaii. Profile
TWST: I was really interested to talk to you about your experiences with Africa. I was curious to get started, and maybe this was from some time ago, but on your Investing in Africa: Quick