Last week in brief… Most of the deal action in Africa last week took place in the continent's north. London-based Helios Investment Partners led a consortium acquiring a majority stake in Fawry that values the Egyptian e-payments services company at $100 million. Amwal Al Ghad reports that the three investors have ended up with 85% of the company, with Helios owning 40% while the MENA Long-term Value Fund and the Egyptian American Enterprise Fund now hold 25% and 20% respectively. Company management and the IFC hold the balance of the shares.
In another private equity deal with North African roots, The Abraaj Group led a $60 million Series C Round in Careem, the app-based car service which operates in 20 cities from Morocco to Pakistan. No further details of the deal were disclosed. The capital will be used to fund the company's expansion plans across North Africa, the Middle East and South Asia.
Over the last few weeks there as been a lot of speculation as to whether Helios would acquire Orange's stake in Telkom Kenya. This week we got our answer as the Africa-focused private equity firm acquired the French mobile telco's 70% stake in its second deal this week. Again, terms of the deal were not disclosed. Kenya's National Treasury holds the ownership balance of 30% in the firm.
On the fundraising front, there were a couple of announcements last week. In the first, Adenia Partners, the private equity firm with offices in Mauritius, Madagascar and Ghana, confirmed it is targeting 200 million euros for its fourth fund. The generalist fund will target control transactions in mid-market companies with enterprise values between 5 million euros and 30 million euros. While the fund has a sub-Saharan focus, it is more likely to look for deals close to it offices, making the firm better able to improve its assets operationally.
In South Africa, meanwhile, Investec Asset Management and Growthpoint Properties announced a 50:50 joint venture to create a pan-African real estate platform company that will acquire (and in some cases develop) commercial real estate assets across Africa. Growthpoint and the IFC are committing startup capital to the project, which is looking to raise $250 million initially, The end game is to grow the platform to an optimal size over the coming 5 to 7 years, before exiting through an IPO.
Reuters reports that South African investment company Brait is looking to float its glass manufacturing asset, Consol, on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange in a deal that could value the company as much as $1.2 billion dollars. An IPO, if it does happen, would likely take place during the third quarter of 2016, according to the Reuters source.
And finally, Okey Enelamah, the Co-Founder and CEO of Nigerian private equity firm African Capital Alliance was sworn in as the country's Minister for Industry, Trade and Investment last week. As such, he has resigned from the firm which he helped launch 18 years ago. Cyril Odu, a Partner who joined the firm in 2012 and who has led the firm's energy investments, has succeded him as CEO.
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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