Last week in brief... This week we reported on one of the largest deals, value-wise, of the last several months in Africa. Apis Partners, the London-based private equity firm focused on financial services sector opportunities in Africa and South Asia, has teamed up with JG Summit Holdings, a Philippines conglomerate owned by the Gokongwei family, to buy a stake in TymeBank, a 2-year old digital bank headquartered in South Africa owned by African Rainbow Capital. The deal, which was struck in early February, sees the two new shareholders invest $110 million into the bank for an undisclosed, minority stake.

TymeBank plans to use the capital to expand its business in South Africa as well as launch a digital bank in the Philippines. Apis, which has considerable financial services sector experience in Africa and Asia, and JG Summit's presence in the Philippines give the digital bank great access to significant expertise and relationships that will benefit their plans. Apis will be nominating a member to sit on TymeBank's board as part of the deal.

Staying in South Africa, Sanlam Private Equity has acquired a majority stake in Cavalier Group, an agro-processing business based in South Africa that specializes in rearing and supplying red meat products. The investment is the first deal for Sanlam’s Investors Legacy Range Private Equity, one of three impact funds launched last year. Sanlam likes the firm's growth prospects - it already has supply contracts with major food retailers in South Africa, can expand domestically by adding quick-service restaurants and hospitality companies to its client base, and has new business opportunities in the export market to the Middle East.

Another South Africa-based private equity fund manager announced a deal last week. Convergence Partners has made the maiden investment for its third digital fund last week, agreeing to a carve-out acquisition of the Africa and Middle East operations of NASDAQ-listed Inseego Corporation’s subsidiary Ctrack. Clients use Ctrack’s offering to optimize their logistics services, improving the management and tracking of their fleets as well as accessing specific insurance and weather telematic services.

Emerging Capital Partners (ECP) is reinvesting in Société d’Articles Hygiéniques (SAH), the producer of the Lilas-branded range of hygiene and cleaning products based in Tunisia. The private equity firm has bought more shares in the publicly listed company and now holds more than 5% of the firm's outstanding share capital. Both investor and investee have a long and fruitful history together. ECP first backed SAH in 2008 when it was still privately held, acquiring a 49% stake in the business before exiting the business five years later when it listed on the Tunis bourse.

In early February, Imperial Logistics acquired a controlling stake in a privately-held provider of outsourced warehousing and fulfillment services to online retailers in South Africa. The publicly-listed logistics and market access firm now owns a 60% stake in ParcelNinja, which it paid R40 million (or approximately $2.7 million at the current exchange rate) for. ParcelNinja provides online retailers with warehousing and fulfillment services from the company’s 6,100 square meter facility in Johannesburg which currently stocks upward of half a million items on behalf of clients across South Africa.

An infrastructure fund managed by Old Mutual Investments Namibia has acquired a controlling stake in the owner and operator of a 5MW solar photovoltaic plant located in Rosh Pina in the !Karas region in Southern Namibia. The fund is buying the majority interest from AEE Power Ventures, a Spanish energy firm that developed and built the plant, which has been operational since 2017. The financial terms of the deal have not been made available. A consortium of investors made up of previously disadvantaged Namibians already held a 30% stake in the plant. With Old Mutual's investment, Rosh Pinah will now be majority-owned by Namibians.

Hlayisani Capital held the first close for the private equity investment firm's first fund last week. The Hlayisani Growth Fund has won R350 million or approximately $24 million in commitments from a group of investors led by Standard Bank and a group of South African family offices. How much each investor is investing in the firm has not been made available, but a large part of the fund's appeal seems to have been the team's track record of financial returns at prior funds. Hyalisani was set up by some of the country's more notable investors, among them Reuel Khoza, Michael Jordaan, and Brett Commaille.

The Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia is one of the anchor investors in a new MENA-focused venture fund sponsored by London-based venture capital firm Hambro Perks. It's reportedly the sovereign wealth fund's first investment in a Western venture fund and it's being made via Jada, its $1 billion fund-of-funds unit. The $50 million Oryx Fund will back early-stage startups operating in the fintech, healthtech, and edutech sectors across the Middle East and North Africa. Other investors in the fund include Riyadh Valley Company, the Saudi Venture Capital Company, as well as some regional family offices.

In people news, Biju Mohandas has joined LeapFrog Investments as a Partner and one of the emerging marketing investor’s three healthcare sector co-leads. He's spent the last nine years of his career at the IFC where he headed up the organization’s healthcare and education investment teams in sub-Saharan Africa from the development finance institution’s offices in Nairobi.

Millar Cameron has boosted their executive search and placement capabilities in Africa’s power and infrastructure sectors with the hire of three senior consultants from Grosvenor Clive & Stokes. The three – Jayne Maxwell, Tim Beckh, and Justin Wharton – add extensive sector experience and connections to Millar Cameron’s offering which is already well-known for its executive search work in the food, agriculture, international development, real estate, technology, and telecoms sectors in Africa.

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

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

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