Last week in brief… It must be said that deal activity involving private equity, venture capital and infrastructure investors in Africa last week was somewhat muted. There was only one private equity deal of significance. Having been IHS Towers' first private equity investor in 2011, Investec Asset Management is backing the company again--injecting a fresh round of equity capital into the African mobile telecommunications infrastructure provider. as is common (if frustrating) with African deals, financial terms were not disclosed.
The latest infusion will be used by IHS to acquire, build and integrate new towers as well asdrive growth on its existing tower base. The company has been growing dramatically over the last four years, expanding from leasing space on approximately 300 towers in Nigeria in 2011 to approximately 23,000 towers in 5 African countries today.
In the biggest DFI financing of the week, Atlas Mara, the Africa-focused financial services investment company founded by former Barclays CEO Bob Diamond has secured $200 million in long-term debt from the Overseas Private Investment Corporation or OPIC to support BankABC, Atlas Mara' banking platform in Southern Africa, to scale up its SME loan portfolio, increase on-lending and invest in information technology upgrades to boost the firm's competitiveness. Some $130 million of the capital being has also been earmarked for strategic acquisitions as part of Atlas Mara's expansion plans.
Bolstering their acquisition war chest, investment company Kagiso Tiso Holdings has raised 800 million rand (approximately $63 million) in an oversubscribed issue of senior unsecured floating rate notes. The issue is the company's second, having raise R600 million in 2012, and is the largest by a BBB-rated issuer in the last 18 months. The proceeds will be use to boost the company's existing cash resources and provide funds for the company's current and future acquisitions.
Africa50, the African Development Bank's infrastructure investment initiative held a first close and announced that it has received $830 million in commitments from 20 African countries. While the first close was only open to African countries, it is anticipated that the second and subsequent closings will be available to a broader set of non-sovereign investors both in Africa and outside Africa. Africa50 is targeting $10 billion over the next 5 to 10 years to invest in high-impact energy, transport, ICT and water projects.
Some new recruits took up their new roles at a variety of firms operating in Africa's deal ecosystem. Trident Trust appointed Thalius Hecksher to lead their global fund services business. Law firm Cliffe Dekker Meyr lured cross-border M&A specialist Deepa Vallabh to head their Asia and Africa M&A practice. Phatisa recruited ERM's Robert Kruger to help build out the firm's internal ESG capabilities and EFG-Hermes is boosting its frontier market expansion plans with the appointment of Sadiq Hussain to head up their asset management division's business development efforts.
Allan Cunningham is a senior media executive who has spent the last 15 years of his career working for some of the world’s most respected M&A and Private Equity media companies including Dow Jones’s publications Private Equity Analyst and VentureWire and most recently, The Deal. He has built a number of successful digital and event content businesses, both subscription and sponsor-supported, delivering information and content-marketing services to clients in the M&A and broader deal ecosystem. He recently struck out on his own and launched Rowayton Press, a multi-platform media company focused on the private capital opportunities in emerging and frontier markets. Mr. Cunningham holds a Bachelors degree from Liverpool John Moores University in the UK.
cloud technology axon
In February 2024, Business Software Group (BSG) launched a initial pub...
