For Armando Manuel, taking on the leadership of Angola's sovereign wealth fund SWF - Fundo Soberano de Angola FSDEA - has meant coming full circle. After helping to launch the fund in the role of economic advisor to the Angolan president twelve years ago, Manuel led it for a year before assuming the role of minister of finance. Following three years at the helm of Angola's economy, Manuel left the country to take up senior roles at the IMF and World Bank.
In late 2023, he returned to lead the FSDEA, but the fund, which as of September had assets of around 4bn, is operating in a very different local and global context from Manuel's first stint 12 years ago.
Angola has undergone substantial political change, with the 2022 death of former long-term president Eduardo dos Santos the catalyst for the further prising away of his family's vice-like grip on government and business. Under Joo Loureno, dos Santos' successor since 2017, the government has promised privatisation, improved transparency and diversification beyond oil, which dominates the economy and provides the basis for FSDEA, but today sits below 70 a barrel.
Eight years on, the reform agenda has had mixed fortunes under a barrage of global crises, but it is clear that the government - and the fund which it owns - retain broader aspirations.
Manuel says the focus of FSDEA has shifted from its role as a guarantor of the stability of Angola's precarious oil economy, to a fund which invests in productive sectors at home and in Africa more broadly. "Previously it was a savings fund that initially had a stability function mandate. Due to the compound crises, we removed the stability mandate, because if you have a number of crises and you don't have the fiscals stable, you can drain the fund so fast.