Last week in brief… There were a number of private equity transactions in Africa last week, but getting more precise information on the terms of the transactions proved somewhat difficult. We normally rank our stories guided by the size of the deals, but in the absence of that information we take an educated guess.
In what was being described as a "multimillion dollar deal", Rand Merchant Investment Holdings and Nedbank Private Equity have each taken undisclosed minority stakes in Entersekt, a financial technology company that has developed push-based authentication and app security technology. The Stellenbosch-based company’s patented solution creates a secure channel between enterprise and user that not even Entersekt themselves can intercept, with banking clients seeing up to a 99% reduction in mobile fraud losses since implementation.
In the second set of exit news in as many weeks, Metier's exit from Astrapak completed last week. Last week, we reported on the South Africa private equity firm's agreement to sell Inhep to Assa Abloy. Metier first backed Astrapak in 2008 and owned a 30% stake in the plastic products manufacturer which has been sold to RPC Group in a $106 million deal.
As part of the deal, three non-core assets of the business have been carved out and will be listed on the AltX of the JSE under the name of Master Plastics. Metier retains an undisclosed interest in this new entity.
AfricInvest is backing International Community School, a private school in Ghana, in a preferential share deal. The investment is the sixth for AfricInvest's third private equity fund, which is now 50% deployed. The capital will be used to upgrade the school's facilities and help support its expansion plans within Ghana as well as the broader West African region. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
In a private debt deal, the IFC and Emerging Africa Infrastructure Fund (EAIF) are behind a $55 million financing package for the development of a 40.5 MW solar photovoltaic plant near Mocuba in Northern Mozambique. Of the $55 million, $19 million is being provided from the IFC's own account, $19 million being provided by Climate Investment Funds and up to $17 million being provided by EAIF.
Adenia Partners has held the final close for its fourth fund, hitting its hard cap of 230 million euros or $257 million in an oversubscribed fund raise. The fund, which was launched in November 2015, held a first close a year later, garnering 180 million euros on commitments from a mix of international institutional investors, regional and European individual investors, entrepreneurs, family offices and foundations.
A little over 70% of commitments were made by investors in Adenia’s prior funds, all of whom increased the size of their allocations, while 25% of the commitments were made by several LPs new to the firm. Adenia’s directors and principals hold 4% of Adenia Capital IV between them.
Meanwhile, the African Development Bank's Board of Directors has approved a $5.6 million commitment to I&P Developpement 2, a fund-of-funds being sponsored by French impact investor, Investisseurs & Partenaires. The fund aims to finance ten impact funds in ten African countries over the 10 years of its life and will provide up to a third of the capital required by each African fund as well as catalyze financial resources from African business angels and other private investors.
In company news, Kuramo Capital has teamed up with Nile Capital Management to launch a new investment platform focused on Africa's public market opportunities. Kuramo Nile Capital, as the new partnership will be called, hopes to leverage the combined market expertise and presence of both entities to deliver good returns to a client base of retail and institutional investors.
And finally, the White House announced that President Trump is nominating Ray Washburne to head up the Overseas Private Investment Corporation or OPIC. Washburne's nomination will require Senate confirmation. If successful, he will replace Elizabeth Littlefield, an Obama appointee, who has led the development finance institution for almost 8 years.
His nomination is being interpreted by many that the future of the agency, which the Trump administration had indicated it wanted to be wound down, is now safer. The thinking is that the President would not appoint a supporter whom he had considered for a cabinet position to a post overseeing the dismantling of an agency.
As always, you can review these and other stories by clicking through to this week’s complete issue of Africa Capital Digest.
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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