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Alternative asset management company the Duet Group has acquired the assets of New Star Asset Management's £18m Heart of Africa fund and launched its own high-net-worth fund.

The Duet Africa Opportunities fund was launched on March 31 and will sit alongside the group's existing Duet Victoire Africa Index fund.

Unlike its sister fund, the new vehicle will be actively managed by Ayo Salami and invest in the securities of companies operating in sub-Saharan Africa, excluding South Africa.

The fund will have a value bias and invest in companies that offer "strong fundamental value given their relative risk/reward trade-off".

Investments will focus on companies that have demonstrated a track record of profit and cash flows, sound business models, discount to intrinsic value and relatively high dividend yield.

Mr Salami said: "We had been looking for a while to launch an active fund to complement our Victoire fund, and when the assets in the New Star fund came up for sale, it was very good timing.

"Despite the background noise of the global recession, we believe in the long-term story for Africa. African banks are not contaminated with toxic assets, and there is an improving political environment. Institutional reform in the African economies has also been prevalent."

Mr Salami said he was so confident in the future prospects for African countries that, although some analysts in the past have said investors should take a 10-year view, it should only be a two or three-year view.

Even this year, Mr Salami said, Africa is set to beat most of the rest of the world in terms of growth. Last year, the IMF predicted Africa would grow by 6 per cent in 2009, and while this figure was scaled back as the world recession deepened, Mr Salami pointed out the revised figure of 3.2 per cent growth was still far higher than most countries in the developed world.

Although the fund is mainly aimed at institutional and high-net-worth investors, with minimum investment being $1m (£670,000), Mr Salami said his company intended to open a retail version for UK investors in the near future, should the product prove successful.