SAVCA Private Equity Conference 2025 recap: After day two – we're elevated!
An impressive 614 delegates joined us between the two days of the 2025 SAVCA Private Equity Conference.
** For the best experience, download the free Africa Private Equity News app Android | iOS **
By SAVCA
An impressive 614 delegates joined us between the two days of the 2025 SAVCA Private Equity (PE) Conference hosted at our new venue, chosen to accommodate our biggest list of delegates yet, the Century City Conference Centre in Cape Town. Despite the National Budget being rescheduled to the same date as the second day of the conference, there was a good turnout, which continued to shine light on the theme ‘Elevate with Intent’.
The programme for the day again highlighted the need for collaboration, engaging industry stakeholders, panelists and delegates in thought-provoking dialogues around topics such as PE’s role in revolutionising sport, risk mitigation strategies in private capital and elevating the exit-readiness of portfolio companies, particularly factoring in ESG as a key driver.
Day two’s proceedings once again began with MC Nozipho Tshabalala, CEO at The Conversation Strategists keeping the crowd in high spirits throughout and celebrating key trends including the boost in transformation, seeing many more women operating in the PE sector.
Game changers – how PE can impact sport
Kickstarting festivities, South African sport was first up on the agenda, where Altvest Capital CIO, Akshay Karan pitched the prospects of investing in SA Rugby champions, the Springboks. “It’s been a journey several years in the making. We want meaningful community and fan ownership to be more accessible,” he said. “Owning a stake in the value fans and other stakeholders create means a piece of that profit goes back in their pockets”, citing a potential return north of 15%.
In conversation with Yvonne Maitin, Executive Director at One Africa Capital and Andile Keta, Partner at the 10k Sports and Wellness Fund, Akshay said investment opportunities such as the Springboks and the funding structure they are envisaging to solve two acute issues in the PE sector: the first being a lack of liquidity and the second, making PE generally more accessible. “We want ordinary South Africans and institutions to have a seat at the table for exciting, unique investment opportunities.”
Yvonne commented on how much sports unifies us as South Africans. “It doesn’t matter whether you’re black, white, young, or old, sport transcends all cultural divides – the passion and energy can really bring people together.” Andile agreed that “the future is bright for investing in sport” outlining the social and financial aspects involved and how these align with SDG goals. Private equity could be the next big player in various opportunities.
Navigating the currents – risk mitigation in private capital strategies
Next up, audience members heard from a panel led by Tamryn Theunissen, Partner at Webber Wentzel focused on innovative mechanisms to mitigate liquidity, currency and transaction risks faced in the private capital market. Joining Tamryn was Marieke Guerts, Investment Director at Amethis, who won the Favourite Day 2 Panelist award at the conference, Graham Stokoe, Transaction Diligence Partner at Ernst & Young and Luke Sutton, Head of Transactional Liability at Marsh Middle East & Africa.
“While there is no cookie cutter solution in Africa; risks can also be opportunities,” said Tamryn, where Marieka agreed, highlighting liquidity risk, a shorter time for exits, currency risks and regulatory considerations, which may bring about uncertainty but can also become opportunities. “Timing is important to get right and ideally, everyone should have skin in the game, when it comes to working with founders and shareholders.”
Graham spoke to the role of due diligence and how some risks to private capital have shifted in the last five years. “ESG, legal, tax and IT risks, among others, are still key to identify, but these are not deal breakers like they might have been before, and that’s because there are mechanisms particularly on the insurance side to deal with these types of risks.”
“Warranty and Indemnity risk products are a really effective risk management tool,” added Luke. “These products respond to unknown breaches of warranty. It’s about your funders and investors needing to see that protection.”
Scaling up private sector funding models
Understanding the current state of energy and water infrastructure along with the funding gaps was the next panel discussion unpacking the programmes underway to address project packaging, financing challenges, suitable funding models to unlock investment at scale and collaboration structures for public and private sector investors. Led by Lungile Mashele, Investment Specialist at the PIC as moderator, who won the Favourite Day 2 Moderator award at the conference, Mameetse Masemola, Acting Head of Infrastructure SA joined the discussion alongside Refilwe Mokanse, Specialist from Infrastructure Finance, Mosa Molebatsi, Head of Debt Private Markets at Mergence Investment Managers and Mike Smith, Director at The Water Fund.
Lungile set the familiar scene of infrastructure challenges in South Africa from road to rail to water and electricity. “Government is saying we need to bring in the private sector and private capital to address ongoing issues, with almost R1 trillion required to fill the funding gap over a three-year period.”
Mameetse added that project preparation and planning, alongside budget constraints and governmental red tape are further challenges to contend with, and outlined solutions underway within ISA, which include bringing in the private sector early so that there is line of sight into the pipeline being developed. Refilwe discussed the importance of identifying suitable funding mechanisms and noted the vast opportunities for collaboration for blended finance solutions across sectors including health, education, telecoms, transport, and infrastructure, to name just a few.
Factoring in potentially the biggest issue, water supply, Mike said that water infrastructure has been neglected at corporate and industrial levels, noting “water is the biggest risk to business continuity as without it nothing can be produced – we can’t live without water”, reinforcing that this risk must be firmly on the agenda across the nation, where investing in resilience is key to the future. “We have to improve the quality and quantity of water supply to meet demand.”
Refilwe confirmed that consolidation and collaboration are needed to address the many infrastructure concerns, and that partnering with the private sector will be crucial to see improvements.
Exits and ESG at the fireside – beyond the investment horizon
This fireside chat focused on intentional, strategic value creation at the portfolio company level using data to leverage exit-readiness of portfolio companies, with ESG as a value driver. Moderated by Lydia Shadrach-Razzino (Partner at Baker McKenzie) in discussion with KPMG’s Collins Makhado and Boitumelo Ngutshane unpacked that strong, true data alongside working with management are crucial to a seamless exiting process, with five main factors to consider. These are value creation, speed, certainty, managing complexity and flexibility. Lydia agreed and added that when managing complexity, the best thing to do actually, is to keep it simple.
“All of these factors are going to be elevated by data, which is central to decision-making, and if your data can’t be trusted, then the speed of exit and other processes will be impacted and become more challenging,” Boitumelo commented. “It’s important to be proactive on your data and more often than not, the data is there, it’s just extracting it.” Credible data is what investors demand and ESG is becoming more of a KPI or a mandate for many firms. “As much as it’s not regulated in the strictest form, we do have aspects of regulation that deal with aspects of ESG – BEE being one example of ESG impact measures.”
Collins agreed and said that it’s important to design with the end in mind. “This is absolutely critical and part of a value creation journey. The exit is part of the strategy, so it’s important to understand that goal upfront – and data is at the centre of this – insights that are trusted and can evidence the approach, while anticipating the future. We need an ability to think through the various scenarios, building those capabilities right at the beginning so that all stakeholders are aligned on what the end goal looks like.”
Investment leaders share their vision for private capital
The final panel discussion of this year’s conference provided a glimpse into the investment philosophies of investors, including current market sentiment, regional considerations, market challenges and opportunities, as well as investor expectations, rounding off a solid two days of insights into the PE industry and investment landscape.
Janina Slawski, Head of Investment Consulting at Alexander Forbes moderated the discussion with Heleen Goussard, Alternative Investment Specialist at RisCura, Christine Kapkusum-Ndiwa, Senior Investment Officer from the International Finance Corporation, Pearl Sebakeng, Head of SOEs, Sovereigns and Corporates from the Development Bank of Southern Africa and Rainer Steinhagen, Investment Manager from DEG.
Collaboration was firmly in focus as the themes, challenges and various case studies were shared across the panel. Rainer commented that volatility and uncertainty across the globe, with the resultant moving of capital to safer asset classes were among core themes, while Christine highlighted that co-investments are on the IFC’s program, with a keen interest to see more co-investing with established Fund Managers.
Heleen highlighted that from an impact investment point of view, there has been real uptake in interest and understanding, which is a great theme to see. “There has been a general acknowledgment that the best way to have impact is through your unlisted portfolio. What is interesting is we’re moving from general intentionality towards something measurable, which is good for the development of the industry.” Heleen and Rainer agreed on the need for enhanced returns, as well as more local investors, which was particularly important for international DFIs, Rainer explained.
The ‘Africa rising’ narrative has shifted and returns need to be improved, making it clear that it’s important to attract more investors into the continent. Pearl commented that our challenges won’t go away tomorrow but it’s important to block out the noise and focus on the right opportunities, with the right impact. The signing of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) is set to unlock a lot of opportunities from a logistics and transport perspective, which will improve the outlook while fintech and innovation are big drivers to reach the young African population. “This is a vast continent with a lot of opportunity, and if we club together, we could create more opportunities, particularly for PE.”
Support and collaboration
Throughout the conference, donations were generously made by delegates to the Saartjie Baartman Centre for Women and Children, to aid abuse victims. SAVCA pledged to match the money raised, totaling R102 000 as the conference closed, and signaling the true power of collaboration.
Thank you to attendees for another informative conference full of insights, truths, observations and objectives, banding together to build a robust and resilient PE industry now and in the future.
About SAVCA
The Southern African Venture Capital and Private Equity Association (SAVCA) is a non-profit industry association, representing over 230 members in Southern Africa, who collectively manage in excess of R237bn in assets.
SAVCA promotes Southern African private equity, private debt, and venture capital by engaging with regulators and legislators on a range of matters affecting the industry; providing relevant and insightful thought leadership and research on aspects that impact the industry; offering training and capacity building opportunities to stakeholders in the ecosystem; and by creating meaningful networking opportunities for industry players, investors and capital seekers.