The Investment Officer is responsible for generating deal flow and building a robust pipeline of prospective projects for development financing as well as structuring deals. Advance investment opportunities/projects (provided by the Coverage Team) from initial review through to achieving bankability.
- Assess the feasibility of investment opportunities or project transactions to ensure they are commercially viable for debt financing and align with DBSA’s strategy and mandate for developmental impact.
- Enhance bankability by identifying and mitigating key risks, working closely with the Investment Support Team (including Sector Specialists, Country Risk Specialists, Financial Analysts, etc.).
- Contribute value to transactions through subject matter expertise, innovation, and creative problem-solving for the benefit of the client.
- Provide input into early review proposals and documentation, ensuring they are presented in the agreed format.
- Transacting and Deal Structuring
- In collaboration with the Head of Transacting, structure and negotiate detailed transaction terms with Treasury, Legal, and Loan Administration Teams to secure transaction approvals.
- Obtain relevant internal approvals and lead or actively participate in the successful conclusion of negotiations to close transactions.
- Actively monitor the transaction unit to drive the credit approval process from early review to the relevant approval committees.
- Submit well-structured and documented proposals to the approval committees for effective decision-making.
- Facilitate the preparation of complex multi-jurisdictional documents and ensure compliance with all required procedures, laws, and regulations.
- Work with the Head of Transacting to address any potential constraints in the lending value chain.
- Monitor all risk aspects related to the financing delivery function for State-Owned Entities (SOEs) and Sovereigns, ensuring appropriate risk structuring and ongoing risk mitigation.
- Ensure sound financial capital management by stewarding the capital under management and efficiently utilising financial resources.
- Record and capture learning opportunities post-transaction to enable continuous improvement and successful deal delivery.
- Appraise new investment and non-investment proposals (early-stage screening and due diligence).
- Perform detailed analysis of investment opportunities, including commercial analysis, financial modelling and risk and institutional analysis.
- Keep abreast of disbursements to approved projects as well as monitor a project’s progress post-investment.
- Coordinate the implementation of investments and monitor the performance of investment projects through progressive investment and income reports; monitor collection and recording of income on investments.
- Relationship Management and Stakeholder Relations
- Build and maintain strong relationships with clients, global and regional private businesses, banking and multilateral partners and government officials to further develop specific investment opportunities.
- Manage relationships at various levels with the relevant project stakeholders, partners, and lead promoters, following the project’s development objectives.
- Ensure continuous communication with clients/ projects that the DBSA has funded to adequately support the division’s monitoring function.
- Identify clients’ pain points together with the front-line divisions and coordinate DBSA’s solution offerings to address them.
- Management of client relationships and key stakeholders.
- Network and maintain relationships with key internal and external stakeholders to further develop specific investment opportunities.
Undertake other tasks as assigned by the line manager, from time to time.
Key Measurements of Outputs
1. Revenue performance in terms of Interest Income and/or Fees generated.
2. Delivery on the agreed Operations Mandate; these include:
- Growth rate in assets of loan book
- Annual disbursements, commitments and approvals
- Quality of loan book
- % of loan book in priority geographies and sectors
- Number of new clients
- Number of potential deals and pipeline
3. Management of client relationships and key stakeholders.
a) Project Management
- Defines, plans, and manages large and/or strategic projects, including those with a high degree of technical complexity, with impacts across the organisation and/or with national implications.
- Assembles and leads diverse and multi-disciplinary teams, ensuring maximum effective resource utilisation.
- Successfully manages substantial project budgets and reports directly to senior managers on the progress and results of projects.
- Identifies complex issues that need escalation and proposes appropriate corrective actions.
b) Deal Structuring
- Uses credit enhancement techniques to structure deals and optimise pricing in terms of Basel principles.
- Has an in-depth and practical understanding of how to optimise the Capital Structure, collateral package, and debt repayment profile.
- Interrogates financial models, including those with a high degree of complexity, to develop an optimal structure.
- Identifies complex structural issues that need escalation and proposes appropriate bankable structures.
- Demonstrates knowledge of advanced structuring including the use of derivatives, syndicated loans, synthetic loans, securitisations, Inflation linked debt, credit default swaps and subordinated debt.
- Prepares specialised or tailored reports relating to new innovative instruments, gather information from a variety of sources, analyse and include in a report to new products approval committees.
- Compiles comprehensive specialist reports as required for inclusion into credit committee submissions.
c) Solution Focus
- Identifies broad, highly complex problems based on a multitude of factors, many of which are complex and sweeping in nature, difficult to define and often contradictory.
- Creates procedures to articulate the nature of problems and to identify and weigh alternate solutions.
- Evaluates the effectiveness of solutions using approaches tailored to the situation.
d) Financial Analysis
- Serves as subject matter expert.
- Evaluates and determines fiscal, operational, and service impacts; analyses and evaluates legislation; and implements and evaluates statistical models in their subject areas.
- Demonstrates in-depth technical and administrative knowledge of the rules and regulations in the subject area and to defend analyses, testimony, and recommendations relating to a variety of issues before management and commissions.
e) Risk Management
- Drives integration and standardisation of risk management processes across the organisation.
- Advises on the application of the organisation’s risk management policies, industry best practices and constructs organisation guidelines.
- Analyses trends in risk management and internal control, evaluates implications, defines, and implements organisation-wide response.
f) Attention to detail
- Quickly identifies relevant and irrelevant information to support accurate decision making.
- Maps out all the logistics and details of a situation to ensure smooth and flawless implementation.
- Consistently identifies all relevant details that are not obvious in complex situations.
- Requires the highest standards for accuracy and quality for their work.
- Establishes processes to ensure accuracy and quality of services delivered by the team.
g) Negotiation
- Has an appreciation of cultural sensitivities and differences.
- Effectively employs a variety of advanced behavioural/interpersonal competencies to control the negotiation situation.
- Can take the lead in a variety of sensitive negotiation situations requiring high levels of tact and diplomacy.
- Can place a discrete negotiation situation within the context of a broader long-term relationship and is not threatened by conceding ground to protect the longer-term interests of DBSA.
h) Commercial Awareness
- Deep understanding of commercial drivers and can take decisions based on an assessment of alternatives concerning complex business situations.
- Deep understanding of DBSA economic priorities and how they can be implemented to meet DBSA's strategic objectives.
- Deep understanding of DBSA's core sector role in achieving DBSA's strategic objectives.
- Deep understanding of the need to coordinate efforts with many government entities, private sector, community groups and individuals to ensure effective implementation of new policies and regulations.
i) Research
- Demonstrates expert skill levels in strategic and operational research techniques, including process analysis, modeling, and forecasting.
- Adapts, creates, and designs new research techniques to meet the organisation requirements.
- Provides specialist coaching and guidance to researchers and other the organisation employees.
- Promotes the professional reputation of the organisation by maintaining a respected profile with relevant external organisations and the research community in general.
j) Communication and Reporting
- Able to communicate complex problems or concepts, by making them simple and understandable for others.
- Adapts language to the level of the audience to ensure that the message has a positive impact and is interesting to the audience.
- Is articulate, demonstrates a wide range of vocabulary, and is confident when talking to large/high level audiences.
- Designs / customises reports to meet user needs.
- Prepares complex or tailored reports, gathers information from a variety of sources, analyses and includes in a report.
- Keeps standard reports under review and proposes improvements to meet user needs.
k) Innovation
- Develops innovative business solutions that shape industry practices.
l) Presentation Skills
- Knows how to deliver arguments persuasively by employing a range of advanced presentation techniques (e.g., the appropriate use of body language, how to close a presentation so that the audience continues to think about the subject matter etc.).
- Has knowledge of various feedback mechanisms to check levels of audience understanding.
Minimum Requirements
- A Bachelor's degree in Finance, Business, Accounting, Mathematics, Statistics, Engineering or Economics.
- A minimum of 2-5 years’ experience relevant work experience in appraising, negotiating and closing project finance, corporate finance, or structured finance transactions in a financial institution.
- Experience in working on investment projects through an established approval process.
- Successful track record in leading project teams with high-level stakeholders and qualified professionals.
- Strong credit, financial, analytical, and modelling skills.
- Experience in financial analysis and/or financial modelling.
- Experience in securing infrastructure investment deals in relevant sectors/geographies in Africa.
- Experience in initiating and developing new business opportunities to create a pipeline of development impact projects ensuring deal flow and bankability.
- Good networks and relations with clients, particularly state-owned entities (SOEs) and Sovereigns, and stakeholders/partners e.g., local, regional, and global private investors and banks to identify and source viable projects/investments.
- In-depth knowledge and understanding of the infrastructure market, financial markets and the macro landscape.
Desired requirements
- A postgraduate qualification or equivalent in Business or Finance (CA or CFA), or Engineering, or Economics.
- Comprehensive knowledge of the complex financial and regulatory environments in Africa.
BEHAVIOURAL COMPETENCIES
a) Achievement Orientation
- Focuses on new or more effective ways of improving own work and meeting targets.
- Focuses on raising quality, customer satisfaction and revenues.
- Makes specific changes to systems and processes to improve efficiency and quality.
- Formulates own objectives and action plans to achieve a measurable improvement in the future.
b) Analytical Thinking
- Identifies multiple elements of a problem and breaks down each of those elements in detail, showing causal relationships between them.
- Uses several analytical techniques to identify several solutions and weighs the value of each.
c) Conceptual thinking
- Creates new concepts that are not obvious to others and not learned from previous education or experience to explain situations or resolve problems.
- Looks at things in a significantly novel way breakthrough thinking.
d) Strategic and Innovative thinking
- Recognises opportunities or problems emerging in patterns and trends, and their impact on the business and profitability drivers.
- Applies learning from previous situations and experiences.
- Sees underlying causality in the current situation. Applies business acumen to make sound decisions.
- Recognises opportunities or potential problems, before they become obvious, by seeing the connections in a range of sources of information, including insights from outside DBSA.
- Restates complex knowledge in a way that makes it easier for others to understand.
e) Commercial Business Acumen
- Understands business fundamentals.
- Analyses and comprehends organisational goals and strategies.
- Understands tactical business fundamentals in the public sector environment and incorporates them into decision-making.
f) Teamwork
- Acts to promote a friendly climate and good morale and resolves conflicts.
- Creates opportunities for cross-functional working.
- Encourages others to network outside of their own team/department and learn from their experience.
