Last week in brief...Deals in the renewable energy and healthcare sectors dominated Africa's private equity investment news last week, but we lead with news from the technology world. Actis and Convergence Partners are helping to fund data center operator Rack Centre's growth plans for its campus in Lagos. The firm is investing $100 million to expand the data center facility's capacity to 6,000 square meters of net lettable white space. On completion, the facility will be able to deliver up to 13MW of IT power capacity to its clients.
In March this year, Actis took the first steps needed to launch the planned $250 million pan-African data center platform, acquiring a controlling stake in Rack Centre from Jagal Investments and cementing the foundation of the buy-and-build business.
To renewable energy now. There were several deals on the continent last week. Metierannounced an investment in Broadreach Energy, a renewable energy platform headquartered in South Africa on behalf of the private equity firm's second sustainable capital fund. Metier's $25 million investment will be used by Broadreach to develop its market position in the commercial and industrial and small utility-scale solar markets.
Staying in South Africa, STANLIB's infrastructure investments unit has acquired a stake in Mulilo Energy, one of the country's largest privately-held renewable energy development groups. Both firms point to the strategic and synergistic aspects of the deal; Mulilo gets a financial partner with deep pockets while STANLIB gains exposure to a proven developer in the all-important renewables sector.
In more of a venture deal, French DFI Proparco has led a group of investors backing Solarise Africa's Series B financing round. Between them, the investors are investing $10 million in the solar financing business which will be used to fund current solar deployments and expand its penetration of existing and new markets. Proparco is committing €4 million in US dollars as quasi-equity, with two existing Solarise investors, Energy Access Ventures and EDFI ElectriFi, providing the rest.
The other renewables-related item last week was a fund commitment. Swedfundannounced an investment in SunFunder’s Solar Energy Transformation Fund, committing $12 million which will be used to back businesses that provide off-grid solar solutions to the millions of customers on the continent.
For the healthcare sector, Best Health, a medical equipment supplier in Amethis Maghreb Fund I’s portfolio, made an acquisition of its own in July. The Moroccan business acquired Mabiotech, a supplier of in-vitro diagnostic devices for an undisclosed sum, adding the market's third-largest company in its sector, its products, and its roster of medical lab clients to Best Health’s business.
News of plans for an ambitious Africa-focused healthcare fund also seeped out over the course of last week. Flying Doctors Healthcare Investment Company CEO Ola Brown told Bloomberg of her plans to raise $1 billion for healthcare investments across the continent. The fund will be raised in three tranches, the first of which, at $200 million, she hopes to close by the end of the first quarter next year.
In other fundraising news, XSML Capital announced the first close for its third fund last week, having garnered commitments from six investors, four of which had backed the private equity firm's earlier funds. Africa Rivers Fund III has landed $54 million so far, leaving the firm a little over $21 million left to raise before it hits its final close goal of $75 million.
Safaricom is expanding the amount of investable capital available to Spark Fund, a corporate venture capital fund launched by the Kenyan telco in 2014. With this latest infusion from Safaricom, the fund now has an additional $5 million to invest, a significant jump in the amount of capital available for investment. S&B Ventures manages the fund for Safaricom, making late-seed to early-growth stage investments in startups that use mobile technology as an enabler.
In people move news, FinDev Canada's first CEO is stepping down from the role after three years on the job. Paul Lamontagne is leaving the young Canadian development finance institution having completed his remit of launching and building out the organization. As yet, his replacement has not been announced.
And, following Jurie Swart's retirement last month, his seat on AVCA's board is being filled by one of his two successors as leader of African Infrastructure Investment Managers or AIIM. Sola Lawson, who joined AIIM in 2011, takes a seat on the industry association’s 12-person board, bringing more than 16 years of corporate finance and infrastructure investment expertise to aid the association's strategic direction.
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
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