Periplus Research Ltd, 43 Berkeley Square, London, W1J 5FJ
Periplus Research Ltd. is a specialist London-based advisory company and collaborates with a premium human intelligence-led research network established to provide a qualitative reading grid that is unique in its depth and scope across 50 under-examined economies in Africa, the Middle East, and the Caspian. Our work is bespoke and provides high-level network-based advisory support and assessments in difficult micro contexts to help our clients test strategic intent and navigate opportunities and risks that are hard to quantify but have a significant impact on value.
50-country associated research network:
The Periplus associated research network is the heart of our business. Network associates are integrated into local business and political circles with two degrees of separation from stakeholders and decision-makers and legally obtain high-value information that is not otherwise publicly available. We support private equity, corporates, foreign ministries, development finance and banking institutions, hedge funds, and international legal teams on business-critical issues with meticulously sourced insights drawn from conversations held with well-placed sources on a discreet, independent basis, context-specific socio-cultural and business acumen, nuanced understanding, and interpretive rigour. Our network associates are based in and have intimate knowledge of 50 frontier markets:
Horn & Eastern Africa — Ethiopia, Sudan, South Sudan, Djibouti, Eritrea, Somalia, Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi, Mozambique;
West Africa & Sahel — Mali, Mauritania, Burkina Faso, Niger, Senegal, Nigeria, Ghana, Côte d'Ivoire, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Benin, Togo, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Gambia;
CentralAfrica — Gabon, Democratic Republic of Congo, Congo-Brazzaville, Chad, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Equatorial Guinea;
Middle East & North Africa — Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Libya, Yemen, Türkiye, Iraqi Kurdistan, Iraq, Iran, Syria;
Central Asia & South Caucasus — Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan.
What we do: sector and thematic focus
Periplus Research has an established track record on hundreds of complex briefs across strategic sectors:
Telecommunications;
Energy & renewables;
Metals & mining;
Transport, shipping & logistics;
Infrastructure & utilities;
Industrials & manufacturing;
Aerospace & defence;
Financial services;
Fast-moving consumer goods.
Our methodology has enabled us to provide targeted insights and assessments in core areas:
Corporate strategy and positioning;
Government thinking, stakeholder mapping, and regulatory and policy dynamics;
Management quality, integrity, regulatory risks, and shareholder insights;
Environmental, social, and governance issues, and supply chain dynamics;
Market entry/exit and international expansions and contractions, including M&A, JVs, minority stakes, integrations, and divestments;
Privatisation and bid dynamics;
Commercial intermediation services;
Enforcement strategies in international arbitration and litigation;
Political and macroeconomic uncertainty and volatility, politically exposed persons, and geopolitical undercurrents;
Ruling party, military, armed groups, and ethnic conflict dynamics, and track II diplomatic support.
Given our proximity to information, we typically approach interested international parties directly: this is where we see an apparently intractable current or future business problem or crisis in a particular country we believe others have failed to identify, and where we can add significant value with well positioned networks and interpretive and advisory capabilities. We are able to take a multi-layered and multi-jurisdictional advisory approach within our geographies and to collaborate with external research networks focused on other geographies on cases with wider international dimensions, often those drawing in jurisdictions in the Gulf and Asia.
As a result of our track record, Periplus Research is also approached on the basis of referrals and recommendations from existing clients. Additionally, we operate collaboratively in partnerships on a non-disclosure basis to head human source intelligence and analysis teams to support advanced mixed-methods teams, investigations and litigation support firms, and strategic advisory companies at the top tier in Europe, Asia, the Gulf, and North America as a core and systematic supplier of raw qualitative source information, context-specific interpretive expertise, and network capabilities proposals that provide the backbone to successful contracts relevant to our geographies. We also frequently partner with GIS and remote sensing teams by providing granular topographically focused insights and latitude-longitude coordinates sourced from our associated research network.
The company was incorporated in 2024 after beginning as a sole trader a decade earlier, and is undergoing formalisation and expansion.
Methodology and business ethics:
Pre-engagement, we provide a rapid and detailed network capabilities proposal on a client’s desired information requirement. We then support the client in developing questions that we will provide to multiple trusted in-country network associates for debriefings of their own long-standing personal and professional networks; network associates work independently of one another to heighten independence, objectivity, and discretion in gathering insights from multiple, diverse perspectives. We also conduct site visits and retrieve financial records, where they are accessible, from local commercial registries. In preparing our findings for clients, overlap between network information provided and network associates’ independent domains of expertise facilitates breadth, as well as depth, of coverage. This also enables us to commission targeted multi-lingual open-source research support including in social and regional variations of dialects. The findings and recommendations are presented in detailed tailored reports and orally, or on a real-time basis in monitoring engagements.
Our internal compliance and ethics policies and procedures are reflective of the regulatory environments in which our clients operate and have been designed with external legal counsel. We also work closely with our clients’ own legal and compliance departments. We maintain the confidentiality of our clients and network associates and do not share our findings with third parties. We do not trade, manage funds, or provide investment advice, and are free of conflicts that can colour traditional investment research.
Selected track record:
Recent commercial projects:
Business intelligence and advice pre- and post-licence acquisition on telecommunications privatisation, bid dynamics, stakeholder mapping, and government intentions relating to emerging regulations, economic policies, and shifting macro-economic and political context under three-year contract;
Post-coup stakeholder mapping and competitor positioning around prospective mining investments in high-grade iron, gold, and titanium ore deposits; and socio-political context assessments of government intentions around rapid changes to emerging mining legislation and disputes under new military regimes;
Due diligence ahead of a potential international mining acquisition finding significant gold supply chain vulnerabilities including partial control by competing rebel groups, bribery of a government minister, suspicious transactions, and money laundering concerns;
Fact-finding, political advice, and court admissible evidence with supporting legal strategy and argumentation in an investor-state shipping and ports operation dispute before multiple arbitral tribunals in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia;
Fraud investigation for a sovereign wealth fund monitoring a multi-jurisdictional dispute over an expropriated telecommunications licence between rival military factions following multiple regime changes in interlinked countries;
Intelligence and recommendations on market entry/exit strategies, due diligence of local private and public sector joint venture partners in M&A, and ESG assessments in sectors ranging from hydrocarbons, FMCG, logistics, and infrastructure to agriculture and banking;
Integrity, network, and credibility reviews of international intermediaries in sectors from defence equipment to sub-sea cables and telecommunications;
Operational reviews of companies facing losses from industrial joint ventures in territory overtaken by terrorist organisations and sanctioned armed groups;
Ultimate Beneficial Owner reviews ahead of potential oil & gas and shipping investments following destruction of commercial registries finding proxy ownership by sanctioned businessmen providing financing and purchases of military equipment to separate sanctioned warring parties.
Recent political and security projects:
More than 900 pages of topographical and tactically-focused raw source reports on core theatres of conflict at national, regional, and sub-regional levels in Ethiopia, Sudan, Somalia, Eritrea, and Yemen — peace agreement and ceasefire monitoring, military, ruling party, armed groups, and ethnic conflict dynamics, boundary disputes, and geopolitics on dozens of contracts through multiple layers of civil and international armed conflict to build GIS and remote sensing imagery and context analysis for foreign ministries and track II peace mediators and telecommunications and industrial firms;
Similar extensive human source reporting and GIS coordination for analysis to inform policy making on criminal groups around smuggling, trafficking, and irregular migration;
Lecturing and pre-deployment briefings, including on sovereign debt issues for private creditors and financial institutions, senior United Nations humanitarian aid staff on geopolitics around civil conflict, regional water-sharing negotiations, and boundary disputes, China specialists on People’s Liberation Army’s first overseas base and linkages between PLA theatre commands, and track II mediators to support negotiations in civil and international armed conflict.