All investments last week were made in tech companies of one stripe or another. But it is the eighth and final exit from Verod Capital Management's first portfolio and an eye-popping gross IRR for its investors which we lead with for this week's issue.
Lagos-based Verod Capital has sold Rotoprint, a packaging company it first backed in 2011, to an unnamed family office. A company representative declined to reveal how much its 100% stake in Rotoprint was sold for but, with this exit, the investment firm reports that the realization of the whole portfolio has returned investors a significant gross multiple of 4.0x and an IRR of 50.8%.
In South Africa, Investec Asset Management is raising its stake in wiGroup, a company is first backed in 2015. The private equity investor is investing an undisclosed amount of growth capital in the mobile-transacting software business alongside some of the company's other existing investors. wiGroup will use the fresh capital to push its growth plans further, both domestically and overseas.
There were two impressive growth capital investments in tech startups last week. The larger of the two was in the healthcare payments sector. CarePay International, a Netherlands-headquartered firm with operations in Kenya, has raised $45 million from a trio of investors including IFHA, ELMA Investments, and the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The fresh capital will be used to support CarePay's expansion plans in Nigeria and Tanzania.
Although slightly smaller in size, Heetch has raised a hefty chunk of capital from a group of investors to support its expansion plans in francophone Africa. The six-year-old ride-sharing platform, which already has operations in Cote d'Ivoire and Morocco, has raised $38 million to fuel its expansion into Algeria, Cameroon, and Senegal. Of the investor group, Cathay Innovation and Total Ventures are investing in the Paris-headquartered company for the first time, while several of the firm's existing investors, Idinvest Partners, Innov’Allianz, Alven, Felix Capital, and Via-ID, are participating again.
Mediterrania Capital Partners continues to land capital commitments for its third and largest fund, this time from Tunisia's Caisse des Depots et Consignations. The financial institution is investing €5 million into Mediterrania Capital III (MC III), which held its first close in December 2017, helping it on its way to its €250 million (almost $300 million) goal for the fund's final close. The 10-year fund is aiming to return investors a gross IRR of 25%.
The CEO of the $1 billion healthcare private equity fund formerly managed by The Abraaj Group has resigned. According to Reuters, whose journalists had seen an internal memo to employees, Khawar Mann has left the company to pursue new opportunities. Last week, it emerged that the fund, which was at the center of mismanagement allegations, will now be managed by global investments giant, TPG, who have renamed the fund the Evercare Health Fund. A search is underway for a new CEO.
And Clifford Chance announced that earlier this month it had hired Africa Finance Corporation's former Chief Operating Officer. The international law firm has appointed Adesegun Akin-Olugbade as an Of Counsel, bolstering its Africa practice with a professional who has spent more than 30 years working for some of the continent's leading international financial institutions.
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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