Not For The Faint Hearted
Meanwhile, bond funds show net inflows of $106 million in 2014, reversing some of last year's $371 million outflow.
After many African nations received sweeping debt relief in 2005, debt ratios across the continent remain relatively low compared to some other emerging economies such as India, even though IMF data shows the median has crept up to around 40 percent of annual economic output from 27 percent in 2008.
African sovereigns have emerged as keen borrowers on global capital markets, and that is unlikely to die down, says Matt Robinson of Moody's Africa Sovereign Ratings Team. Yet due to the limited exposure most funds had to the continent, Africa's frontier markets were less vulnerable to sentiment swings than their bigger emerging market cousins, he added. "It is not for the faint hearted to invest in sub-Saharan Africa, so you tend to get people who have done the math and run the ruler over it, and they are still willing to invest."
Dollar bond yields across Africa offer investors a spread of 305 basis points over U.S. Treasuries, compared to 287 basis points in emerging Europe or 191 basis points in Asia.
And bricks-and-mortar foreign direct investment (FDI) is continuing to flow in. FDI this year in sub-Saharan Africa will total $32.5 billion, the World Bank predicts, forecasting $35.6 billion in 2015. This compares with just $24 billion in 2010.
True, the commodity price falls will endanger some mining and oil exploration projects earmarked for the continent. Just this week, for instance, Kinross Gold said it may not proceed with a $1.6 billion mine expansion in Mauritania.
But consultancy EY notes that FDI increasingly has been shifting from commodities into consumer sectors such as telecoms, retail and banks.
Kenya, Ghana, Mozambique, Uganda, Tanzania and Zambia have emerged as investment hotspots, according to EY.
Intra-African investment is also on the rise. African investors have nearly tripled their share of investment in the continent over the past decade to 22.8 percent, EY says, and the rising trend should continue given the continent's still solid growth rates.