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What we do
Four practice areas, scoped individually and run together. Every engagement starts with a written scope, a named deliverable and a fee basis agreed in advance.
01 — Growth
Market Entry & Commercial Strategy
For companies deciding whether to enter a West African market, and how. We build the operating picture that sits underneath the investment case: what demand actually looks like at street level, what the real cost base is once logistics and compliance are priced in, and which entry structure survives contact with local law and local practice.
Most of this work is done before a board paper is written. It is cheaper to find out that a distribution model does not work in Abidjan from a four-week study than from two years of losses.
- Sector sizing and demand assessment, including informal channels
- Competitive and pricing landscape
- Entry vehicle options: subsidiary, JV, distribution, acquisition
- Partner and distributor longlisting, screening and shortlisting
- Landed cost and operating cost modelling
- Localisation, staffing and workforce planning
A written entry assessment with a recommended structure, a ranked partner shortlist, a costed timeline to first revenue, and the assumptions that would change the recommendation if they turn out to be wrong.
02 — Risk
Political & Policy Risk
Political risk work is often sold as prediction. We think that is the wrong product. What a decision-maker needs is a small set of plausible futures, a clear account of what each one does to the business, and a short list of observable indicators that tell you which one you are in.
We build that picture from the institutional detail: who signs, who can obstruct, what the budget cycle forces, and how the last three comparable decisions in this ministry were actually made.
- Stakeholder and decision-rights mapping
- Election, succession and transition scenarios
- Fiscal, tariff, subsidy and currency policy monitoring
- Security and community risk at asset and corridor level
- Expropriation, contract-renegotiation and licence-review exposure
- Standing monitoring with agreed escalation triggers
A scenario note of three to five pages per scenario, each with trigger indicators, business impact and a recommended response — plus a monitoring brief on an agreed cadence.
03 — Diligence
Counterparty & Integrity Diligence
Database screening is necessary and nowhere near sufficient in this region. Coverage of West African corporate registries is patchy, litigation records are frequently offline, and adverse media in French and local languages is poorly indexed. A clean report from a global provider often means the provider could not see anything, not that there was nothing to see.
We work the registries directly, retain local counsel where filings must be pulled in person, and corroborate through sector sources who have dealt with the counterparty.
- Corporate registry, shareholding and filing history
- Beneficial ownership tracing through holding structures
- Litigation, insolvency, tax and enforcement record
- Politically exposed person and state-linkage analysis
- Sanctions, watchlist and adverse-media screening in FR and EN
- Discreet source enquiries with sector counterparties
A findings report with a red-flag summary on the first page, an ownership chart, sourced detail behind every material claim, and an explicit statement of what we could not establish and why.
04 — Compliance
Regulatory & Compliance Navigation
The OHADA uniform acts give seventeen states a common commercial law. They do not give them a common administration of it. The practical questions — which office, which form, how long, what triggers a re-review — are answered locally, and they change.
We map the pathway you actually have to walk, flag the obligations that carry real enforcement risk, and work alongside your counsel rather than in place of them. We are advisers, not a law firm, and we will say so whenever a question needs a legal opinion.
- Licensing and permitting pathway mapping with realistic timelines
- OHADA incorporation, governance and security-interest requirements
- UEMOA and BCEAO requirements for regulated activity
- Local content, employment and technology-transfer obligations
- Anti-bribery, AML and third-party compliance programme review
- Cross-border data, payments and repatriation rules
A regulatory pathway document: sequenced steps, responsible authority, statutory versus observed timelines, documentation required, and the points where the process most commonly stalls.
Engagement
How a piece of work runs.
No open-ended retainers unless you specifically want one. Most engagements are fixed-scope and run between three and eight weeks.
01
Scoping call
Forty-five minutes, no charge. We establish the decision you are trying to make and whether we are the right firm for it.
02
Written proposal
Questions to be answered, method, sources we intend to use, timeline, named deliverable and a fixed fee or capped estimate.
03
Fieldwork
Registry and documentary work, interviews and site enquiries, with a short interim update if anything material surfaces early.
04
Delivery and debrief
Written deliverable, then a working session with the people who have to act on it. Follow-up questions for thirty days are included.
Start with the scoping call.
Tell us the decision in front of you and the deadline attached to it. We will come back with a scope or an honest referral elsewhere.