PwC Case Study: Adenia Partners acquires The Courier Guy

PwC was approached by Adenia Partners to act as advisor on the transaction.

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By Ryan Rodkin, Partner | Deals Advisory, PwC South Africa [email]

Industry: Private Equity & Transport and Logistics

Our role: Financial, Tax and IT Due Diligence and Deals data analytics & insights

Service: Deal Advisory: Transaction Services & M&A Tax

Setting the scene

Adenia Partners, a long-standing investor in Africa, makes values-based investments in promising companies across the continent and takes responsibility for guiding them to sustainable growth. In acquiring The Courier Guy (TCG), Adenia is taking another step in honouring this commitment. The acquisition marks the second investment by the Adenia V fund.

TCG is a leading courier service provider in South Africa that assists customers by shipping their goods both domestically and internationally. It owns 190 kiosks, 22 depots and more than 1,200 Pudo smart lockers, serviced by an extensive network of delivery partners.

The South African e-commerce market is expected to grow significantly over the medium term. As part of its investment in TCG, Adenia partnered with co-investors DEG, a German development finance institution; Proparco, the French development finance institution; and South Suez.

How we helped

We were approached by Adenia to act as advisor on the transaction, with a focus on financial due diligence (FDD) and tax due diligence (TDD) services. Our approach was to focus on aspects of the transaction that would maximise value for our client while keeping the impact on the transaction negotiations and the Sale and Purchase Agreement in mind.

Our client-centred approach helped us to identify additional areas of importance, and our services were expanded to include top-up FDD, IT DD and big data insights by leveraging the capabilities of our advanced data and analytics (D&A) team.

Sustained outcomes

With a focus on the strategic direction that Adenia envisages for the business as well as the commercial drivers, our D&A team was able to develop analyses and derive more insights into the operations of the business, based on big data. Dynamic visualisation of data assisted our client to better understand the performance drivers of the business and to obtain comfort on deal hypotheses.

The digital infrastructure is a core component of the business’ ability to run its operations. Our Technology in Deals team was able to provide our client with key insights into the core capabilities of the underlying digital landscape and the IT operating model and its appropriateness in supporting the post-transaction investment thesis.

Operating as an integrated multi-disciplinary team allowed us to deliver a holistic and consistent view of the business, identifying and articulating not only the insights impacting the transaction terms and pricing, but also the key post deal considerations required to support our clients’ value creation objectives.

This transaction was about more than short-term gains; it was about Adenia’s role in the African growth story, and we are glad to have played a part in this journey.

Let us be part of your success story.

For more information, email Ryan Rodkin, Partner | Deals Advisory, PwC South Africa