Britain’s development finance institution has appointed the former finance chief of the China-headquartered Brics bank as its new CEO, it said.

South African Leslie Maasdorp, whose term at the New Development Bank (NDB), as the Brics bank is now called, ended in July, will replace outgoing CEO Nick O’Donohoe at the head of British International Investment (BII).

O’Donohoe retires after seven years at BII.

Maasdorp was formerly vice-president and CFO of NDB, a multilateral development bank set up in 2015 by the Brics group of emerging economies — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

Headquartered in Shanghai and set up to support the development objectives of its member states including China, NDB offers a developing-country led approach in a market dominated by Washington-based multilateral institutions such as the World Bank.

NDB was expanded in 2021 to include Bangladesh, the UAE and Egypt and had plans to deploy $5bn (R87.6bn) in loans in 2024.

BII was set up in 1948, is owned by the British government and invests about £1bn (R22.85bn) a year in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean.

Reuters