We kick off this week's summary with news of The Carlyle Group's latest African deal. The alternative investment giant has acquired a majority stake in IsoMetrix, an environmental, health and safety software vendor headquartered in Johannesburg. By our calculation, it's the fourteenth deal for Carlyle's $698 million Africa buyout fund.
Part of the deal's strategic rationale appears to be the opportunity to leverage the potential synergies between IsoMetrix and one of the fund's other portfolio companies, the NOSA Group, which Carlyle bought in 2017. The plan is for both firms to collaborate in developing and cross-selling a suite of technology-enabled managed solutions designed to address environmental and occupational health and safety risks to a combined client book of over 1,000 enterprise clients around the world.
BBOXX is benefiting from additional capital for the third time this year. Another global giant is involved. Japanese multinational Mitsubishi Corporation led a group of strategic and financial investors backing the off-grid solar company's Series D round last week. Aside from Mitsubishi, most, if not all, of the other consortium members had been involved in BBOXX's earlier rounds. So far this year, the company has raised over $80 million in equity and about $8 million in debt.
After more than 10 years as a shareholder, the IFC is selling its stake in one of the continent's largest banking concerns, Ecobank. The deal, which was first mooted in June, closed last week and gives Arise, the specialist financial services investor a 14.1% stake in the publicly-listed banking group. What Arise paid for the stake has not been revealed, but your back of the envelope calculation values the stake as much as $70 million at the close on Friday.
Staying with the financial services sector, Oikocredit has become the latest private capital investor to back a lending institution in Kenya. The impact investor is taking a reported 22.8% stake in Kenya's Credit Bank as part of the lender's ongoing rights issue to increase its authorized capital and attain Tier II status. It hopes to achieve that by December this year.
Another strategic investment last week came courtesy of Standard Bank who led a round for Nomanini in partnership with one of the fintech company's original backers, Goodwell Investments. The investment gives Standard Bank access to data from Nomanini's platform on the informal retail economy which it plans to use in the development of a mobile app offering business, credit and savings services to millions of informal merchants in some 14 countries on the continent.
In the agriculture sector, JSE-listed Zeder Investments is buying a significant minority stake in East Africa Seed Group (EAS) through one of its portfolio companies, Zaad Holdings. The wholly-owned producer, marketer, and distributor of agricultural seeds is buying a 40% stake in EAS which has operations in East and Central Africa, both regions Zaad have identified as offering seed and agrochemicals companies compelling growth opportunities.
Tamela Capital Partners has announced the first close for its maiden mezzanine debt fund. The Johannesburg-based fund manager has secured commitments totaling R420 million or approximately $27.6 million for the fund. Tamela has a final close target of R1.5 billion or almost $100 million in its sights, which it hopes to achieve at some point in the final quarter of 2020.
And finally, the IFC is mulling a commitment to a large, planned healthcare-focused fund.Alta Semper Capital is marketing the fund, a $250 million private equity vehicle. The 10-year fund will target control stakes in well-run companies, investing between $10 million and $50 million in equity in businesses across the continent from its offices in London, Cairo, and Lagos.
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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