Chief Investment Officer, SNOU at African Development Bank - AfDB

Reference: ADB/20/053
Location: Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire
Grade: PL3
Position N°: 50102227

The Complex

• The Senior Vice-Presidency (SNVP) is responsible for supporting the President in the day-to-day management of the Bank Group to achieve its strategic objective and drive performance culture that will align all processes and systems to deliver high impact results.
• The SNVP provides effective leadership and exceptional coordination to ensure implementation and monitoring of key corporate decisions as well as the identification of necessary corrective measures and actions.
• The SNVP leads senior management discussions, decision-making processes and the implementation of key Board and Management decisions. The hiring Unit, SNOU reports to the SNVP.

The Hiring Unit

• The SNOU provides specialized knowledge and services to resolve distressed and underperforming corporate/project finance loans and equity exposures and assists with the identification and management of problem projects on the Bank’s watchlist.
• The SNOU works closely with Portfolio Management, Risk Management and Legal to plan, organize, resource and implement the activities related to private sector project identification, preparation, appraisal, implementation and portfolio management.
• SNOU leads “Jeopardy” projects where there is a risk of loss to the Bank and supports portfolio management on “Joint Venture” watchlist projects. Restoring positive operations, restructuring Balance Sheets and rescheduling loans to match sustainable debt service capacity is the ideal outcome, returning the project to portfolio management. Other outcomes may range from one-time cash settlements to exits (severing the Bank’s relationship before potential adverse PR associated with failure and job losses), debt for equity and conversions of excess unsustainable debt (to preserve the Bank’s upside value after improvements) through to enforcement of collateral and business or asset sales.
• SNOU carefully balances purely commercial remedies against the development, social and environmental mandate of the Bank when assessing resolution strategies, whilst managing the overall reputation of the Bank.
• In addition to managing the unit’s portfolio of underperforming projects, also shares key lessons learned and promotes “early warning signs” across front office teams to identify and react to problems when they start, not just when the projects are deeply impaired. This preserves value for the Bank and keeps Non-Performing Loans, loan arrears and provisions to a minimum and assists with improving the quality of investments at entry.

The Position

• The Chief Investment Officer must possess considerable experience with the technical delivery of such projects as well as leadership skills for his direct reports in the Unit as well as both internal and external interaction and consensus building. The Chief Investment Officer will deputize for the SNOU Head when required to do so.
• The Chief Investment Officer must leverage the prior project knowledge from portfolio managers who can be highly valuable temporary members of a tailored SNOU Jeopardy or Joint Venture team. However, SNOU must bring a new vision and objective thinking to decide on the best path forward for the underperforming project so as to maximize recoveries whilst minimizing any write-offs. The Chief Investment Officer must practice and encourage others in the rapid diagnosis of distressed situations and to design and implement optimal rehabilitation and exit strategy but with no “cookie cutter” approach, as each project has unique characteristics and issues which must be assessed and resolved.
• The Chief Investment Officer may also be invited from time to time to observe the CRC investment process and Board Approval in order to bring his or her experience to the attention of the Bank. Lessons learned from a career focused on global distress resolution can be a useful complement to the in-house experience of AfDB’s experienced bankers.
• The Chief Investment Officer must represent the Bank professionally with external parties too, including auditors/advisors/consultants, Government representatives, co-investors, Central Banks, Regulators and also at technical, DFI and MDB conferences.

Duties and Rresponsibilities
Under the supervision and guidance of the Head of Unit (SNOU), the Chief Investment Officer will undertake the following:

• Monitor the financial and operational performance of impaired investments and effect execution and implementation of agreed workout strategies to ensure optimal recoveries whilst seeking to minimize any write-offs;
• Prepare regular reports and back-to-office reports as required on all investment resolution activities;
• Identify lessons learned to disseminate SNOU’s workout and recovery experience to other investment departments within the Bank to assist Portfolio Management to identify warning signs in projects at an earlier stage;
• Preparation of financial forecasts and perform and review cash flow analysis to determine the debt carrying capacity of project companies and the return potential for equity investments, participate in due diligence of companies and determine, document and present options for approaching investment resolutions (e.g. trade sale, restructuring, refinancing, turnaround, workout, enforcement and insolvency processes, debt for equity swaps or any other rescue approaches);
• Lead internal multi-disciplinary teams when conducting business reviews to understand the issues facing companies and offering practical solutions; interact with accountants, legal, financial and sectoral consultants; interact with senior management of investee companies; liaise with other co-investors and DFIs and construct and review complex financial and valuation models with sensitivities as required;
• Prepare detailed action plans and different resolution options for each non-performing or impaired investee company for the SNOU Head and other team members to present to the internal Credit Risk Committee and Management Committees including recommended strategies to resolve and optimize problem investments whilst understanding the need to protect the over-arching developmental mandate of the Bank and to minimize any reputational fall-out.
• To work on any specific ad-hoc project that is request for the Chief Investment Officer to be engaged in to add value to the Bank.

Selection Criteria

• A Master’s degree or equivalent in Economics, Business Administration, Finance or related discipline.
• Professional qualifications in Accounting, Legal or Banking are a strong advantage.
• A minimum of seven (7) years of relevant progressive experience.
• Demonstrable and extensive track record and professional experience of working either in a workout or recovery team for a bank or financial institution or having worked for a major accounting or consulting firm advising clients on workouts, restructurings, non-performing investments or loan portfolios.
• Ability to quickly understand the underlying issues and inherent risks of specific project investments under review and advising on the most appropriate course of action and the associated consequences, risks and costs of each action proposed;
• Diverse experience both geographically and sectorally, of investing and divesting across different types and sizes of businesses and projects. International investment and recovery experience is a must. Understanding cultural sensitivities is also key to this role;
• Ability to assess the effectiveness and efficiency of incumbent management teams, making recommendation on how to change or improve teams in investee companies;
• Knowledge and experience in valuation of listed and unlisted equities and ability to assess proposed exit strategies for problem projects. Experience with Private Equity Funds, adding value to investments and/or Project Finance would be an advantage;
• Strong analytical and modelling abilities and ability to lead transactions from inception to completion would be an advantage;
• Sound business judgment, with creative problem-solving skills and ability to think laterally in order to solve complex business and financial problems. Ability to build effective client and other relationships (both internally and externally);
• Advanced corporate negotiating and influencing skills in workout, restructuring and investment environments.
• Excellent written and verbal communications in English or French, with a working knowledge of the other language.
• Competence in the use of Bank standard software (Word, Excel, Access, PowerPoint). Ability to provide strategic advice to the Bank on emerging financial and development issues, as well as corporate issues.