By Eliot Pence

The rapid increase in the number and size of African pension funds arguably matters more than any other single trend in the continent’s economic development. The pace at which pension funds have grown is staggering. According to analyst reports, the top six countries’ pension funds alone are predicted to grow total assets under management to over $600 billion by the end of the decade (from $200 billion today). They are on pace to grow to over $7 trillion by 2050.

Over the next 10 years, Africa’s savers – more than its consumers – will define the nature of the continent’s growth. But there are as many challenges as there are opportunities in the changing institutional investment landscape.

Key Drivers of Growth

There are two significant trends underlying pension funds’ growth in Africa: migration and demographics. Growth in urbanization has led to an increasingly formalized urban labor force, which has led people out of informal savings mechanisms and into state or

By Marek Fuchs

Staples (SPLS) gives good call. And they’re going to have to when they take to the phone lines at 8 a.m. Wednesday after reporting their fiscal fourth quarter and full-year 2012 earnings. It’s not the earnings, which will be lukewarm at best, that figure to stand as a crucial topic of conversation.

Rather, Staples made a series of bumptious claims on their conference call back in November when they reported earnings that were pretty much in line with expectations on markedly disappointing sales.

Thanks to the happy talk and high promises of the conference call, however, traders forgave Staples for the sin and transgression of a terrible top line. They trusted the company, granting them the benefit of a significant level of potential doubt.

Fair enough. After all, if Staples holds to those high promises, everything will be copasetic.

Promises made

But in order to determine if all the November forgiveness was warranted and stands a chance of holding through March and