Last week in brief... Two large funds captured our attention last week. The first was a fund close. Cairo-based Lorax Capital Partners has held the first close for its second fund, landing commitments from 5 LPs. It now has $142 million of the eventual $250 million it's aiming for which will be used for growth capital investments in Egypt. The fund's LPs are DFIs in the main and include EBRD, EIB, IFC, Proparco, and the Egyptian American Enterprise Fund.
DFIs also played a significant role in the next item of fund news. DPI's latest private equity fund, Africa Development Partners III, has become the first 2X Flagship Fund, a designation granted to funds committed to making gender lens investments using the 2X Challenge criteria as well as those managed by private equity firms that promote gender diversity within their own organizations. The 2X Challenge is a multilateral initiative launched by the DFIs of, primarily, several G7 countries with the original goal of mobilizing $3 billion for investments that empower women and enhance their economic participation. The challenge has already blown through that goal, mobilizing $4.5 billion so far.
In deal news, SPEAR Capital has invested in a manufacturer of household and industrial plastic products with operations in Zambia and Mozambique. The private equity firm's SPEAR Africa Holding II is backing Arkay Plastics with an undisclosed amount of capital that the firm will use for its working capital requirements, to expand its production capacity, and fund its overall export market growth plans.
Inside Capital Partners is merging the first business it ever backed, Kalalushi Clay Brick with Beta Holdings, a building supplies firm headquartered in Zimbabwe. The two businesses are being combined together under the name Beta International in which KCB and Beta Holdings shareholders will each hold stakes. How the stakes in the new entity break down has not been disclosed.
Easy Solar has landed a mix of equity and debt capital from three investors which it will use to scale its off-grid solar business in Sierra Leone and Liberia. The investment is made up of $3 million of equity (for Easy Solar's Series A round) from Acumen and FMO and a $2 million debt facility provided by investment platform Trine. Among other things, Easy Solar's management is focused on scaling up the company's commercial & industrial (C&I) business in response to the growing demand for energy in offices, farms, factories, schools, and hospitals across West Africa.
Singapore-based impact investor Genuine Interest is making its first investment in Africa, taking a stake in American Homebuilders of West Africa (or AHWA). Up until this point, the private equity investor has focused on deals in Asia but sees the investment as an ideal opportunity to get going in Africa. The investment provides AHWA with a pool of capital to expand its regional housing development plans, particularly the firm's social housing offering.
Goodwell Investments' uMunthu Fund is leading investors backing a Series A round for an agricultural inputs company that supports small-scale Zambian farmers with legume seeds and related commodities and services. Together with two of the firm's existing seed investors - Global Partnerships and Finca Ventures - Goodwell is investing $2.1 million into Good Nature Agro which will use the capital to develop and build more processing capacity.
We report three items of people move news this week. Stéphane Heuzé, who headed Wendel Africa, has joined SPE Capital as a Managing Partner. He will be based in SPE's Casablanca office, helping to lead the expansion of the firm's investment activities and operations on the continent.
Having been nominated as African Guarantee Fund's acting Group Chief Executive Officer in July following Felix Bikpo's transition to Chair the organization's board, Jules Ngankam has now been formally confirmed in the role. He'd joined AGF as its Chief Financial Officer in 2013, before becoming Deputy CEO in April 2017.
And finally, Tim Turner, who recently retired from the African Development Bank after nearly 25 years, has been appointed as Senior Adviser to the Eastern and Southern African Trade Development Bank's CEO and senior executive team. He'd held a number of roles at the Bank, most recently as the institution's Chief Risk Officer, and been involved with several of the Bank's key initiatives.
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 Africa
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Bullnet Capital ha liderado una ronda de inversión en Mapsi Photonics...
