Private Equity |

LeapFrog invests US$25mn in AFB Mauritius Limited

LeapFrog Investments is investing US$25m in AFB Mauritius Limited (“afb”). afb is a disruptive financial technology platform that offers life-changing financial tools to financially-excluded consumers and small businesses in sub-Saharan Africa. afb partners with mobile operators and retailers to reach this vast, untapped market. • afb is growing rapidly, and already reaches some one million people in sub-Saharan Africa; this investment will accelerate the impact of the business across the region. This is LeapFrog’s fourth…

8 Miles invests in Uganda’s Orient Bank

Posted on by The Editorial Team

Pan-African private equity firm 8 Miles have joined a consortium of local investors to buy Bank PHB, formerly Orient Bank Limited, a mid-tier commercial bank in Uganda, from Keystone Bank, a government-owned Nigerian bank. The consortium includes the original founders of Orient Bank who lead the consortium as well as Chinese business man who is a resident in Uganda. The bank had reportedly been making losses it had been taken over by Nigerian Keystone Bank and…

Actis launches $1.9bn pan-African renewable energy platform

Posted on by The Editorial Team

Actis today announced the launch of a pan-African renewable energy generation platform, Lekela Power. Actis is investing alongside Mainstream Renewable Power, the global wind and solar developer, which will own the other 40% of the platform. Lekela Power is the eighth such energy platform Actis has created, following a proven replicable strategy of aggregating energy assets into scalable regional platforms. This focused approach was most recently demonstrated in the development of Ostro Energy, a renewable…

Runa Alam Considers Why Africa’s Opportunities Far Outweigh Its Risks

Posted on by The Editorial Team

Runa Alam is something of a private equity pioneer. Alam co-founded Development Partners International, which she calls the first pan-African firm, in 2007. London-based DPI’s clients now include the $9.3 billion Missouri State Employees’ Retirement System and International Finance Corp., the private sector development arm of the World Bank Group. In a region where private equity general partners complain about a paucity of exit opportunities, DPI has managed eight initial public offerings and six corporate…

Global Private Equity & Venture Capital Investment in 2014

Posted on by The Editorial Team

Private equity fundraising down 9% to $486bn in 2014Preliminary figures released by research provider Preqin indicate that global private equity fundraising reached $485.7bn in 2014, constituting a drop of 8.7% from $532bn in 2013. Prequin expects the fundraising figure for 2014 to increase by 10% to 20% as more information becomes available. On a quarterly basis, 253 private equity funds raised $110bn in the first quarter 2014, 276 funds secured $153bn in the second quarter,…

How To Get Private Equity Exits in Africa Right

Posted on by The Editorial Team

Private equity (PE) as an asset class has received reasonable prominence in Africa in recent times. New records are being set both at the levels of fund raising and sector diversity of investments. Africa is becoming increasingly investor-friendly. The attraction of PE to Africa is driven largely by many factors such as: the huge market size – Africa is home to over 1 billion people; relatively young population – about 60% are below 40 years…

AfricInvest exits stake UAP Holdings Kenya

Posted on by The Editorial Team

AfricInvest, a leading pan-African SME-focused private equity firm, is pleased to announce that its AfricInvest Fund II (“AFII”) and AfricInvest Financial Sector (“AFS”) Fund, along with two other investors, Aureos Africa Fund (managed by Abraaj) and Swedfund, entered into an agreement to sell their 37.3% collective stake in UAP Holdings Limited (“UAP”) to Old Mutual Holdings, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Old Mutual plc (“Old Mutual”) for KES 14.2 billion (approximately USD155.5 million). Old Mutual had…

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