Last week in brief… Mediterrania Capital Partners continues to deploy capital from its second North Africa-focused fund which closed with €120 million in August this year. Last week saw the announcement that it has taken a 23% stake in Société Meunière Tunisienne, the manufacturers and distributors of Randa, one of Tunisia’s leading pasta brands. The capital infusion will be used to extend the company's product range to meet customer demand as well as set up frameworks for international expansion.

In other private equity investment news, Sun European Partners' deal to acquire Finlays Horticulture from James Finlay Ltd. gives Sun some African assets. With operations in Kenya, South Africa and Tanzania, the company is the largest producer and exporter of fresh produce and flowers from Africa to Europe. Meanwhile, Paris-headquartered Amethis Finance announced the close of its third debt investment last week in which it had made a commitment of $15 million to a $75 million syndicated subordinated term loan for Ecobank Nigeria. The lead arranger for the deal was Dutch DFI, FMO with additional commitments from DEG and Swedfund.

Bloomberg had a couple of interesting reports this week. In the first, Investec's private equity business is planning to exit two of the seven investments it holds through its $155 million Africa Private Equity Fund. Neither details of the assets in question nor the timeline for the disposals were disclosed. And in the second, Old Mutual's private equity group is making investments in two consumer-facing businesses this month. The first, a $23 million deal in an as yet unnamed company, was agreed last week. The second deal is expected to be similar in size. We'll look out for more details in the coming weeks.

The Nigerian investment opportunity continues to attract interest. Silicon Valley-based venture capital investor 500 Startups is looking to add two Nigerian tech companies to its portfolio of Africa investments over the next 12 months. Any such investments would be the firm's first in the continent's largest economy. The venture investor already has 10 investments in Africa in Egypt, Ghana, Kenya and South Africa.

And finally for this week's summary, there were a number of high profile appointments in the news. The most significant was the nomination of Okey Enelamah, African Capital Alliance's founder and CEO, to a post in President Buhari's cabinet. His nomination will have to be approved by Nigeria's Upper House. Meanwhile, in the latest “Africa move” by TPG, Yemi Lalude, the founder of Adlevo Capital has joined the global private investment firm as Managing Partner for Africa. He'll be responsible for leading the firm’s investments in Africa in coordination with Satya Capital, a partnership you may remember being announced in June this year.

Allan Cunningham

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 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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