Private Equity |

8 Miles invests in Uganda’s Orient Bank

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…

What significant non-mining infrastructure projects are underway in Africa?

Posted on by The Editorial Team

A well-worn argument postulates that infrastructure spending in Africa is focused on resources due to many countries remaining very dependent on the export of minerals and hydrocarbons. But this is no longer the case. GDP per capita levels in many African countries have climbed past the critical US$1,000 level – enabling consumers to purchase more than just the basics. Urbanization has also been an important factor to contend with: Africa had 22 cities with more than…

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…

Financing Africa’s massive projects

Posted on by The Editorial Team

It is an audacious $4.8 billion project undertaken by one of the world’s poorest countries. At the construction site in the Benishangul region of Ethiopia near the Sudanese border, some 8,500 workers are labouring tirelessly every day to build the gigantic Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam. When completed in 2017, the dam will generate 6,000 megawatts of electricity for domestic consumption and export. On the surface, the 558 ft tall dam — Africa’s biggest hydropower project…

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