Last week in brief...We're starting this week in North Africa. SPE Capital Partners is buying Saham Group's Morocco-based pharmaceutical business in a deal that also sees participation from Proparco. The transaction is the fourth for SPE's Africa-focused private equity fund which closed with $200 million last year. With this investment, the fund has now deployed approximately 30% of its capital.
Staying in the healthcare sector, the African Development Bank announced last week that it had signed off on a commitment to a planned $100 million healthcare fund. Razorite Healthcare Africa Fund will benefit from a $10 million investment from the Bank which it hopes will catalyze additional financing from other development finance institutions and commercial investors, helping it on its way to its final goal.
In other fundraising news, Development Partners International is adding another European development finance institution to its roster of LPs for its third fund. Having backed DPI's first fund, Dutch development bank FMO is back again, signing off on a $25 million commitment to the latest fund which is ultimately looking to raise $800 million by final close.
In terms of dollars, the biggest deal of the week was one we'd first reported on at the end of last year. A.P. Moller Capital's deal for IberAfrica Power has now reached completion, adding the thermal power operator in Nairobi to the portfolio of the investment firm's Africa Infrastructure Fund. The acquisition is the fund's first in Kenya and marks the initial step in a $200 million plan to invest equity capital in greenfield and brownfield power and energy infrastructure assets across the country.
Specialist ICT investor Convergence Partners has rolled up the portfolio companies held by Synergy Communications, its investment platform of enterprise-facing broadband businesses, and rebranded the group as inq. The move brings seven businesses under the inq banner, including the four recent acquisitions of business units from Vodacom in Nigeria, Cote d'Ivoire, and Zambia as well as the Vodacom's unit in Cameroon which is expected to complete soon once the necessary regulatory approvals have been granted. Inq now has an operational footprint in thirteen cities across seven countries on the continent, establishing a firm base to support its goal to be the continent's leading cloud and digital services provider.
South Africa's Payment24 has sold a significant stake to one of its business partners, Standard Bank, for an undisclosed amount. The deal gives Africa's largest banking group a significant minority stake in the 5-year old company which sells digital field management solutions and telematics to its client base of fleet operators and fuel retailers. Up until this point the firm, which was founded by joint CEOs Shadab Rahil and Nolan Daniel in 2014, has been largely bootstrapped, only taking on seed capital in 2018.
GreenTec Capital Partners announced its latest investment last week, backing a Kenyan mobile and web-based trucking logistics platform. The venture investor is investing an undisclosed amount of capital in Amitruck, and, as is common with all its investees, plans to work closely with the firm to help it scale and take advantage of its considerable market opportunity.
There were two interesting items of people moves news this week. Orli Arav has joined Lions Head Global Partners to lead the Facility for Energy Inclusion. The AfDB anchored debt fund is focused on backing Independent Power Producers developing grid, mini-grid and captive power projects, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. She assumed the role of Managing Director at the London-based investment firm this month.
TPG has promoted the Chief Investment Officer of the firm's impact fund to be the Co-Managing Partner of TPG Growth. Michael Stone, who has been at TPG Growth since 2009, will work alongside Matthew Hobart to direct the business which manages approximately $14.5 million in assets. He takes over from Jim Coulter who stepped in as interim Co-Managing Partner after Bill McGlashan's departure from the firm following the USA college admissions scandal last year.
Stone will continue to serve as the CIO of The Rise Fund, TPG's $5 billion global social impact investing platform, which he helped found. Since joining TPG, he has played an instrumental role in building TPG Growth, serving on the platform's investment committee and leading some key investments for the group including Big River Steel, Wilderness Holdings, and Zipline.
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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