Kessner Capital's Gulf Move: New Colonial Finance in Africa
When a British firm relocates to Abu Dhabi, it's never just business as usual.
Strategic Relocation: Kessner Abandons London for Gulf Protection
On the surface, it appears as another corporate announcement: British firm Kessner Capital Management expands its geographical presence and partners with an Emirati family office to establish a regional base in the UAE capital. But for those who read between the lines, Kessner's Abu Dhabi expansion is neither innocent nor neutral. It represents a calculated move to circumvent Western regulatory frameworks, deterritorialize financial power, and silently reconfigure influence flows across the African continent.
Kessner, specializing in private credit and special operations in African markets, abandons the City of London as its nerve center in favor of a platform that's legally flexible, fiscally tolerant, and politically discreet.
"Abu Dhabi has become the essential hub for anyone looking to deploy capital into Africa," states Bruno-Maurice Monny, Kessner's co-founder and managing partner.
He's not wrong. But this statement deserves deeper analysis.
The Gulf: New Sanctuary for Non-Aligned Ambitions
Abu Dhabi attracts capital not because it's geographically closer to Lagos or Kinshasa than London, but because it offers structures like Kessner Capital shelter from European compliance demands, Anglo-Saxon ESG obligations, and World Bank ideological pressures. Here, the conversation centers on returns, leverage, and access. Everything else is secondary.
The unnamed Emirati family office acts as a silent interface between local influence networks and Western appetites. This discreet alliance provides Kessner with regional legitimacy, expanded networks, and access to sovereign capital ready for rapid African market deployment.
Abu Dhabi thus becomes the hub for assumed shadow finance, operating without public accountability but with formidable efficiency. Through this relocation, Kessner escapes British oversight while maintaining European financial access.
Africa: Laboratory for Non-Western Capital
Kessner openly declares its ambition to deploy capital in African sectors promoting "inclusive and resilient growth." Behind these conventional phrases lies an opportunistic investment strategy targeting infrastructure, logistics, natural resources, and sovereign debt. In other words: Africa's open veins.
This movement reflects a broader dynamic: recolonization through private credit, using financial instruments beyond traditional African oversight mechanisms. In this game, Kessner, backed by Abu Dhabi, becomes an instrument of this new silent extraction.
There are no NGOs here, no public donors, no social conditionalities. Just bilateral deals, opaque clauses, and very real consequences.
London Marginalized, Washington Bypassed
Kessner's London office becomes merely a satellite. Strategy is conceived elsewhere. In the post-Western world, where deals happen outside Western rules of engagement.
This circumvention occurs within a specific diplomatic context: as Washington, weakened, attempts to rally allies against China and Russia, intermediary structures like Kessner bridge Anglo-Saxon capital with gray zones of global growth. Abu Dhabi serves as their free trade zone.
Kessner as Vanguard of Post-Western Finance
What Kessner's Abu Dhabi arrival reveals is the establishment of a new financial power geography: mobile, invisible, non-aligned. Far from the IMF, distant from the UN, and more connected than ever to regional power hubs.
Kessner isn't an exception. It's a weak signal. And in today's world, weak signals speak louder than official declarations.
This represents nothing less than the evolution of financial colonialism, adapted for the 21st century. While African leaders celebrate independence anniversaries, new forms of economic subjugation emerge through sophisticated financial engineering, operating beyond traditional oversight mechanisms.
The question remains: will African nations recognize these new colonial patterns before it's too late?