Private Equity

JOHANNESBURG (Capital Markets in Africa) – Vodacom Group Ltd. closed some South African stores on Thursday as protests intensify over the level of compensation the mobile-phone company is prepared to pay an ex-employee who had an idea for a popular call-back service. While Vodacom says it accepts a 2016 court ruling that the company should pay Kenneth Makate for his creation, the two parties are at odds over the correct amount. Makate’s cause has been taken…

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – Coca-Cola Co. sees plenty of expansion opportunity in Africa after taking full control of Nigerian juice maker CHI in a deal that underlines its growing emphasis on lower-sugar drinks and emerging markets. The U.S. soft drinks giant on Wednesday acquired the remaining 60 percent of CHI for an undisclosed amount, three years after making an initial investment in the Lagos-based company. The acquisition “gives us the platform that allows us to target…

JOHANNESBURG (Capital Markets in Africa) – Steinhoff International Holdings NV paid former Chief Executive Officer Markus Jooste about 5 million rand ($380,000) for the two months he worked for the South African company in fiscal 2018, before he quit suddenly amid an accounting scandal. The payment was disclosed in a report published Thursday by Pepkor Holdings Ltd., a clothing retailer with more than 5,200 stores that was spun off by Steinhoff in 2017. Danie van der Merwe, who took over from…

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – Torched homes, gutted shopfronts and fields of rotting corn greeted Laker Betty as she returned to the town in South Sudan’s breadbasket she fled in terror a year ago. She’s one of thousands of civilians tentatively returning to the East African nation after a war that at its height rivaled Syria for the dubious title of the world’s worst conflict, claiming almost 400,000 lives. As President Salva Kiirprepares to welcome rebels…

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – Atlas Tower Pty Ltd. is in talks to bring in partners from South Africa’s black majority to help the telecommunications tower company expand at home and enter new markets on the continent, according to people familiar with the matter. Chief Executive Officer Nathan Foster has relied mostly on wealthy individual investors for funds since he founded the business in 2007 and is looking to do additional private fundraising and…