Last week saw deals, exits and even an insolvency involving some of Africa's higher-profile private capital investors. Nedbank Private Equity and RMB Ventures teamed up to back a management buyout of three of Ascendis Health's bioscience units which the South African company is disposing as part of its reorganization plans. As well as the senior executive team running these units, all employees are moving across too.
Atlas Mara also had its own exit of sorts last week. The pan-African banking platform has agreed to exchange its stakes in four banks for a stake in Equity Group Holdings, Kenya’s largest banking group by market value. The move comes following a strategic review of Atlas Mara’s operations which started earlier this year.
Mediterrania Capital Partners is selling a significant part of the stake it acquired in Cash Plus in 2014. The transaction, which is the third exit for Mediterrania Capital II, sees Groupe Richebond, an industrial and property conglomerate buy the stake in the Moroccan money transfer company, MCP II will continue to hold a partial interest.
Oasis Capital Ghana was in the news again this week, for making another healthcare investment. The private equity firm is investing a mix of equity and quasi-equity capital for a stake in the Polyclinique Internationale Sainte Anne-Marie, one of Côte d’Ivoire’s largest private healthcare clinics. The capital will be used to support two of the healthcare clinic’s current initiatives; the renovation and modernization of its current facilities as well as the construction of a new radiotherapy unit.
Inside Capital Partners has made its third deal for its first fund. The fund manager is investing equity in Reneworld, the Indian Ocean island nation’s second largest installer of on-grid and off-grid small-to-medium size photovoltaic solutions. The fresh capital is being earmarked for, among other things, the company's regional expansion plans.
WorldCover, which provides smallholder farmers with climate insurance, has landed several million dollars from a quartet of venture investors for its Series A. The startup, which has offices in New York, Amsterdam and Accra, has raised $6 million from a group of investors led by MS&AD Ventures. The firm sells its service to African farmers, using satellite imagery, on-ground sensors, mobile phones, and data analytics to develop insurance options to guard against negative, weather-related consequences on their crop yields.
In fundraising news, Frontier Investment Management has held the final close for its second fund, beating its original goal by 13.5 percent. Following a final round of commitments, which include a $58 million investment from Allianz, the insurer and asset manager, the fund has raised a total of $227 million, handily beating its original goal of $200 million. The fund will back hydro, solar, wind and geothermal power projects in sub-Saharan Africa.
The African Development Bank is backing FIVE, AfricInvest's evergreen financial services investment platform bringing the total amount of capital raised so far to €82.5 million and adding the multilateral institution to a roster of LPs which includes fellow-DFIs. FIVE’s investment strategy is to back mature Tier 2 and Tier 3 financial institutions on the continent which have a growth strategy based on digital transformation or strategic expansion in deals typically sized between €3 million to €20 million.
And finally, that insolvency. Mobisol, a provider of off-grid solar systems in Kenya, Rwanda and Tanzania, has filed for preliminary insolvency proceedings under self-administration in its home country of Germany. The move will allow the company to restructure its operations and bring on new investors with whom it has been in discussions since January this year.
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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