Yesterday, Sunday, brought one of the more newsworthy deals of the past week. Investec Asset Management revealed that they'd made their first private equity investment in Egypt, buying a controlling stake in supermarket chain Spinneys from the now-insolvent Abraaj Group. According to reports there had been as many as five private equity firms circling the asset late last year, but Investec's second fund seems to have won out.
Staying in the North African region, GEMS Education, an owner/operator of schools in many countries including Egypt, Kenya, and Uganda, got a new, shareholder. London-based private equity firm CVC Capital has acquired a significant minority holding in the company, snapping up the stakes belonging to Fajr Capital, Blackstone, and Bahrain sovereign wealth fund Mumtalakat, who now all fully exit the firm.
At the other end of the continent, One Thousand & One Voices has made its second investment in the mountain Kingdom of Lesotho. The private family fund is backing The Rosehip Company which sources processes wildly grown rosehips for export for the tea trade and skincare business. The deal's a bet on the developed world consumer's move toward organically produced, premium health products which many forecast will grow substantially in the next few years.
Notable venture capital deals also featured last week. OPay, a digital payments startup in Nigeria landed a significant round of capital, most of which came from Chinese investors, who, until now have tended not to take advantage of the continent's smaller investment opportunities. The deal was supported by IDG Capital, Sequoia China, Sourcecode Capital Partners, and GSR Ventures among others, including OPay's original founder, web browser company Opera, itself owned by Chinese investors and which has expansion plans into several internet verticals on the continent.
Toyota Tshusho, a unit of the Japanese engineering giant which has a 90-year history on the continent, participated in another of last week's venture deals. The firm joined a group of new and existing investors backing the Series B round for Africa-focused Powerhive, a US-headquartered mini-grid firm with operations in Nairobi. As well as capital, Powerhive hopes to leverage Toyota Tshusho's extensive continental footprint in support of its expansion plans.
South Africa's Knife Capital is making a Series A investment in one of the businesses selected to take part in the venture capital firm's Grindstone Accelerator program last year. The investor is backing Granite WMS, a barcode-based warehouse management system which integrates a variety of ERP systems and accounting software packages. The solution has been developed by 2018 Grindstone alumnus firm, Cradle Technology Services.
There was no fundraising news of significance last week. But there were two interesting items of people news. The first concerns Jo Taylor, Ontario Teachers'head of global development who has been tapped to succeed the Canadian pension giant's CEO Ron Mock when he retires at the end of the year. Taylor originally joined Ontario Teachers in 2012 to head up their EMEA business from London.
And Emerging Capital Partners has promoted Paul Maasdorp, the Managing Director of its Nairobi office, to Partner. He's been with the firm for 9 years. Among the deals he has led for the private equity firm this year were its transactions for Artcafféand Inter Africa Transport Forex. He'll still be based in Nairobi.
That's it for this week. As always, you can review these and other stories by clicking through to this week's preview edition of the newsletter.
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.
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