Two buccaneering stocks to buy now

Paul Hill tips a great play on the developing wealth of sub-Saharan Africa, and a stock to tap into profits with the search for North Sea oil.

Which three countries are set to expand the fastest in 2012? The first two on the International Monetary Fund's list China (8.2% growth) and India (7%) won't surprise many investors. But the third one might it's sub-Saharan Africa at 5.5%. That puts it way ahead of Brazil (3%), Russia (3.3%) and well above a global average of 3.3%.

This is because Africa has an abundance of natural resources oil and gas, gold, base and precious metals, diamonds which are relatively cheap to extract and sell to boost GDP. The Arab Spring in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia has rocked output in the north of Africa. But further south it hasn't had much impact.

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Paul gained a degree in electrical engineering and went on to qualify as a chartered management accountant. He has extensive corporate finance and investment experience and is a member of the Securities Institute.

Over the past 16 years Paul has held top-level financial management and M&A roles for blue-chip companies such as O2, GKN and Unilever. He is now director of his own capital investment and consultancy firm, PMH Capital Limited.

Paul is an expert at analysing companies in new, fast-growing markets, and is an extremely shrewd stock-picker.