Last week in brief...Well, what a quiet week that was. While that was true of deal and fundraising activity in Africa's provate capital deal markets last week, the deals what were done involved some of the contnent's highest profile investors.

The biggest of these was The Carlyle Group. The global alternative investor has completed a deal to acquire a majority stake in Abacus, one of East Africa's largest pharmaceutical distributors and the largest manufacturer of parenterals, (IV fluids, ear, nose and eye drops), in Uganda. The firm, which was founded 23 years ago, is headquartered in Kampala and has built a wholesale network of 30 branches across Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi, Rwanda and Kenya.

While Carlyle has invested in more than 65 healthcare deals across the world, this deal is the first for Carlyle's $698 million Sub-Sahara Africa Fund. The market position that Abacus has built for itself coupled with the region's favorable demographic trends and increasing demand for pharmaceuticals were all factors that made the deal attractive for Carlyle.

Harith General Partners feature in our coverage again this week. Not for an investment it has made, but rather one that's been made in one of its portfolio companies. French telecoms giant Orange is making what's described as a major investment in MainOne Cable, the West African submarine cable system backed, in part, by Harith.

The deal helps Orange reinforce its position in Africa's telecommunication's ecosystem by adding additional capacity to its network, and helps MainOne develop its system further by supporting the construction and installation of two new branches and stations. MainOne was launched by Funke Okepe, its CEO, in 2009, with equity funding from Harith, Africa Finance Corporation, Skye Bank and First Bank of Nigeria Capital, as well as debt from a consortium of local and international banks.

We now move to smaller end of the deal spectrum for out other deals this week. Paga, a Nigerian digital payments business, has raised $10 million from an investor group led by the Global Innnovation Fund. Others participating in the round include some of Paga's exisitng investors - Adlevo Capital, Goodwell Investments, Omidyar Network and Unreasonable Capital - who were involved in Paga's $13 million Series B round in October 2015.

In another smaller, potential deal,the IFC is considering an equity investment in a digital logistics platform in Nigeria. The development finance institution's board is set to meet in mid-October to review an investment of up to $3 million in Kobo360 which has developed an e-logistics marketplace which matches truck owners with cargo owners who have long-haul freight needs.

The company, which was founded by Obiora Ozor and Ifeoluwa Oyedele, is looking to disrupt Africa's $150 billion transportation and logistics industry, using its "Uber for Trucks" model to provide cargo owners, truck drivers and cargo recipients with delivery predictability, reliability, price transparency and optimal utilization of trucking assets.

According to reports, Kobo360 has served over 300 businesses, moving approximately 37 million tons of cargo using a fleet of almost 5,500 drivers since its founding in 2017.

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

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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