The 5 most popular stories on Africa Private Equity News this week

Here are summaries of the five most widely read stories this week on Africa Private Equity News.

1. African Infrastructure Investment Managers invests in logistics group

African Infrastructure Investment Managers (AIIM), one of Africa’s largest infrastructure-focused private equity fund managers, and the Mokobela-Shataki consortium have completed a ZAR1.6 billion (about $110.1 million) takeover of The Logistics Group (TLG) on 31 March 2022. The integrated logistics company operates in Southern Africa with services across port, rail, warehousing and digital transport logistics.

The transaction was financed by a mix of equity and debt financing. AIIM, through its flagship South African IDEAS Fund and AIIF4 Fund, acquired a 74% stake in TLG. The remaining 26% stake was acquired by strategic investment partners, the Mokobela-Shataki Consortium, sponsored by Moss Ngoasheng, founder and CEO of Safika Holdings (Pty) Ltd, and Monhla Hlahla, former CEO of the Airports Company South Africa and current Chairperson of Royal Bafokeng Holdings.

2. SPE Capital acquires stake in education group from TPG and Satya

SPE Capital announced the acquisition by its private equity fund SPE AIF I of a strategic minority stake in Holding Générale d’Education (Holged), a private education group in Morocco and Tunisia, from TPG Growth and Satya Capital.

Founded in 1986, Holged is a K-12 education group teaching to more than 16,000 students across four schools and 17 campuses. Over the past few years and throughout its partnership with TPG and Satya Capital since their investment in 2015, Holged has established itself as one of the leading private education groups in Morocco and Tunisia.

3. Final close for Endeavor’s Harvest Fund II

Endeavor South Africa has announced the R190 million (about $13 million) final close of its Harvest Fund II. A year ago, Fund II announced its first close and an investment into South African-founded e-mobility play, Flexclub. Since then, Fund II has made 10 investments (with another six in the immediate pipeline), the most recent being into the world’s leading chat commerce platform and Sequoia-backed Clickatell in its $91 million series C round.

Harvest Fund II is a founder-aligned, rules-based, co-investing fund, into a vetted pipeline of medium-sized, high-growth Southern Africa founded Endeavor Entrepreneurs who are enrolled in its global programme. Fund II follows the terms of the lead investor, enabling Endeavor to actively assist entrepreneurs to raise capital through access to Endeavor’s investor network and supporting them to negotiate terms with the lead investor, before Fund II joins the round. This enables Fund II to rapidly deploy capital into its network of Endeavor Entrepreneurs and stay aligned with the founder.

4. Harith exits MainOne to US-listed Equinix

Harith General Partners, an investor in African infrastructure, has concluded the disposal of its stake in MainOne, a West African communications services operator, to Equinix , the world’s largest digital infrastructure company, following the achievement of all regulatory approvals.

MainOne is one of the largest investments of the Harith-managed $630 million Pan African Infrastructure Development Fund (PAIDF). The sale of MainOne represents an important milestone for Harith and its PAIDF investors.

5. Swedfund makes additional investment in African Rivers Fund 3

The Swedish development finance institution, Swedfund, announced an additional investment of $4.45 million in African Rivers Fund 3 (ARF 3), managed by XSML, increasing Swedfund’s total commitment to $14.45 million. ARF 3 primarily provides loan and equity financing to small and medium-sized companies in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Uganda and Angola.

Since Swedfund’s first investment in August 2020, the fund manager has invested in approximately 20 companies enabling entrepreneurs to access the financing and support they need to strengthen and develop their businesses in regions often neglected by investors. The fund manager aims to grow small businesses into medium and large enterprises and will provide growth capital to some 30-40 companies.

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