Selection Begins for Knox Lawrence International's 2nd Annual Africa Business Plan Competition

New York, NY, February 12, 2009 --(PR.com)-- Business plans from teams at the Nation’s top tier University MBA programs have been submitted for consideration in Knox Lawrence International’s (“KLI”) 2nd Annual Africa Business Plan competition. The competition committee is currently in the process of selecting business plans to move on to the next round culminating with three finalist teams presenting their plans in New York.

KLI, a New York based private equity firm, kicked off it’s Inaugural Africa Business Plan competition last year by targeting students who are in their second year in Master of Business Administration (MBA) programs at leading U.S. Business Schools and that also have shown interest in Entrepreneurship, Emerging Markets, and specifically Sub Sahara Africa. Last years winner, team Mozergy from the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan, conceptualized a business plan using Jatropha to produce biofuel feedstock in Mozambique. The team utilized the grand prize of $10,000 to help fund an extended survey mission to the country to further develop its plan.

“I’m very excited to see this competition move into its second year”, says Ken Globerman, Executive Chairman of the Competition. “Greg Altman and the rest of the executive team have done an excellent job distinguishing this year’s event from last year’s, having made several enhancements which build upon its first year success.”

This year’s pool of business plans propose ventures involving healthcare, energy, education, agro-processing, aquaculture, manufacturing, social networking, venture finance, logistics, and natural products - all promising sectors across Sub-Saharan Africa. In the process, students gain valuable experience on developing business plans that address emerging markets.

Notes Gregory Altman, this year’s Competition Chairman; “We aim to provide the students with an eye into the process that a private equity investor uses to assess potential investments. Those reaching the final round benefit from exposure and further evaluation by additional practitioners in relevant fields.”

Finalists will be chosen at the end of this month and judging will take place on Friday, April 10th. Those selected contestants will be invited, travel expenses paid, to present their plans to our panel of judges in the hopes of being awarded the $10,000 grand prize. The 2nd and 3rd place teams will be awarded a $3,500 and $1,500 prize respectively.

A profile of the contestants and their proposed ventures will be presented on the Competition website, http://abpcompetition.knoxlawrence.com.

Knox Lawrence International, LLC is a new York based private equity form focused on acquiring and growing middle market non-core subsidiaries of Fortune 500 and other large companies in sectors that are undergoing significant transitions such as the utility sector. Knox Lawrence focuses its investment activities in the following sectors: IT Services, Business Process Outsourcing and Energy Services. The firm has historically made acquisitions of non-core subsidiaries ;of US based publicly traded utilities and used these acquisitions as platforms to build high growth businesses.

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