Last week in brief...After a couple of quietish weeks, last week was comparatively very busy for Africa's private capital markets. A number of deals undertaken by a number of the continent's better-known investors took a large share of the limelight, but not all of it. A couple of notable fintech investments made news, while Morocco saw its biggest private equity deal of the year so far. Uganda's pharmaceutical sector was a factor in a couple of exits and a blended finance fund for the education sector landed some new investors.
We lead with Helios Investment Partners and their acquisition of a majority stake in one of the MENA region’s faster-growing direct carrier billing providers. The London-based private equity firm is buying a large stake in TPAY Mobile from A15, a technology investment fund managed by Cairo-based Accelero Partners.
According to Accelero, the deal was a huge win, returning A15’s investors a multiple of the entire value of the fund and making TPAY the region's first "Dragon" to be created. The startup was founded in 2014, and, as the first open mobile payment platform in MENA, seems to have successfully capitalized on its first mover advantage. Today, the firm commands as much as an 80% share of the direct carrier billing market in 16 countries.
Goldman Sachs was also involved in a fintech deal last week, leading a group of investors backing JUMO’s latest equity funding round. JUMO's developed a credit scoring algorithm that accurately assesses a consumer’s creditworthiness, which helps banks and other capital providers provide loan and savings products to emerging market customers through mobile phone networks.
Through this round, Goldman, Proparco and Finnfund are each making their maiden investments in this firm, while Vostok Emerging Finance, Gemcorp Capital, and LeapFrog Investments are all returning to up their investments to the firm. The fresh capital will be used to support JUMO’s growth into new markets. According to the company, over 9 million people have saved or borrowed on the JUMO platform since 2014.
Sticking with the broader financial services sector and with investors who are investing more in their portfolio companies, Kuramo Capital is upping its holding in one of East Africa's largest pension fund managers. Having acquired a controlling stake in GenAfrica Asset Managers from Centum Investment in March this year, New York-based Kuramo has agreed to acquire an additional stake in the company from the firm's management and staff. The investment manager now owns some 90% of GenAfrica, with managers and employees still owning the balance of the firm.
DPI may be responsible for the biggest private equity deal of the year in Morocco. The Africa-focused private equity investor is spending a significant amount via its second fund, African Development Partners II, to acquire a majority stake in Moroccan irrigation business Compagnie Marocaine de Goutte à goutte et de Pompage or CMGP from its existing shareholders, the Moamah family, and fellow private equity investor, Amethis Finance. CMGP plans to use DPI's capital, networks and expertise to diversify its product range and expand its operations further into Africa.
The first of last week's two Ugandan pharmaceutical sector-related exits saw AfricInvest sell its stake in Kiboko Holdings. The disposal, which was transacted on behalf of the €143 million AfricInvest Fund II, follows last week's sale of one of Kiboko Holdings' subsidiaries, pharmaceutical business and Abacus-brand operator AK Life Sciences, to Carlyle. AfricInvest originally backed Kiboko in 2011, since when, in addition to capital, the private equity firm's efforts to help the company re-organize and streamline its operations have translated into gains in revenues and profitability.
Private equity-backed Cipla Quality Chemical Industries or CiplaQCIL priced and allocated its IPO on the Ugandan Stock Exchange last week. The Kampala-based company, which manufactures combination therapy anti-retrovirals and anti-malarials under license from Indian pharmaceutical giant Cipla Ltd, raised about $43.5 million for almost 18% of the company in an oversubscribed deal. Private equity firms TLG Capital and Capitalworks both realized partial exits through the IPO, which was the first in Uganda in several years.
Finally, CDC Group and the OPEC Fund for International Development are among the new investors backing the Regional Education Finance Fund for Africa or REFFA. The blended finance structured fund, which is the first devoted exclusively to Africa's education sector, is managed by Swiss-based impact investment manager Blue Orchard Finance, who are investing alongside the two development finance institutions.
The fund, which is ultimately targeting $100 million, has a mandate to provide the education sector with customized financial solutions which will help improve and increase equality of access and the quality of education at primary, secondary, vocational and higher education levels.
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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