ENKO Capital

Cyril Beriot founded ENKO Capital in 2011 after leaving Cheyne Capital, a London-based alternative asset manager, and serves as Chief Investment Officer. He is the named portfolio manager for the firm's Africa Credit Fund series. Beriot built the investment team around credit specialists with European institutional training, and investment decisions are concentrated within the senior investment committee under his direction.

ENKO focuses almost exclusively on Africa, a region many broad emerging-market debt funds are structurally underweight or absent from entirely. The firm originates bilateral and syndicated loans directly to mid-market corporates and quasi-sovereign entities, rather than passively trading index-eligible sovereign Eurobonds. Its credit analysis integrates European-style legal protections with an understanding of local enforcement environments, reflecting Beriot's structured-credit background at Cheyne.

ENKO operates its own pooled fund vehicles — the Africa Credit Fund series — into which external investors commit capital. The firm then deploys that capital directly into loans, bonds, and structured credit instruments. It does not act as a fund-of-funds or allocate to external managers; it is a direct originator and underwriter of African credit risk.

ENKO's portfolio spans both Francophone West Africa — including Côte d'Ivoire and Senegal — and Anglophone markets such as Ghana, Nigeria, and Kenya. The firm has also selectively invested in Southern African jurisdictions where dollar-linked cash flows support credit underwriting. The dual office structure in Paris and London reflects the historical Francophone and Anglophone axes of the investment strategy.

Development finance institutions have intermittently participated as anchor investors or co-lenders alongside ENKO's funds on specific transactions, providing a layer of policy-aligned capital. This partnership model is common in African private credit, where DFI participation can mitigate political and currency risk perceptions for private institutional limited partners. ENKO itself remains an independent, privately held asset manager with no controlling DFI ownership.