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. Côte d’Ivoire: Amethis exits retail distributor of oil and gas products
Private equity firm Amethis announced its exit from Pétro Ivoire, a retail distributor of oil and gas products in Côte d’Ivoire, through the sale of its minority stake to Caisse Nationale de Prévoyance Sociale (CNPS), a large Ivoirian public institution.
“Amethis has accompanied Pétro Ivoire through two of its vehicles which exited in 2018 and today. The success of Pétro Ivoire reinforces Amethis’ investment strategy to build African regional champions. We are pleased to have contributed to support the expansion of the group, the work of the general manager of Pétro Ivoire Sébastien Kadio-Morokro during all these years of fruitful collaboration and to sell our stake to CNPS which invests in a strategic sector for Côte d’Ivoire,” said Jean-Thomas Lopez, partner at Amethis.
2. Actis to acquire controlling stake in renewable energy platform
Actis has announced the signing of definitive transaction documents for the acquisition of a controlling stake in Yellow Door Energy (YDE).
YDE is a distributed commercial & industrial (C&I) solar platform in the Middle East and Africa (MEA) region with around 200MW of secured production capacity. Closing of the transaction remains subject to obtaining the relevant regulatory approvals.
The transaction will be funded through Actis’ Energy 5 Fund. Actis will apply its buy-and-build power strategy to scale the business and accelerate growth.
3. Green Climate Fund approves $145m FMO investment in Climate Investor 2
The board of the Green Climate Fund (GCF) has approved the joint FMO – Climate Fund Managers (CFM) $145 million proposal to accelerate private sector investments in low-emission and climate-resilient water, sanitation and ocean projects, entitled Climate Investor 2 (CI2).
As an accredited entity to the GCF since 2016, the project is FMO’s third collaboration with the fund and its largest – following the $100 million that the GCF invested in Climate Investor One in 2019, and $137 million invested in the Green Growth Equity Fund (GGEF) in 2021.
CI2, managed by CFM, is a blended finance facility that supports the private sector to develop and construct climate-resilient infrastructure projects in developing countries in the water, sanitation, and ocean sectors – areas which do not yet attract interest from the private sector. With the help of the GCF funding, CI2 will be fully equipped to attract commercial funding and grow to a $1 billion fund.
4. South Africa: Apis Growth Fund I exits Retail Capital
Apis Growth Fund I, a private equity fund managed by Apis Partners, has entered into an agreement to sell the whole of its interest in South African SME financing company Retail Capital to TymeBank.
The fund invested in Retail Capital in October 2018, acquiring a 11.7% shareholding in the company. Over the investment, Retail Capital has lowered the barriers to funding for SMEs through an easy, three-step online application process. This has led to Retail Capital providing more than 43,000 business owners in South Africa with over R5.5 billion (c. $326.4 million) in working capital over the last 10 years, making it the largest SME funder of its kind in the sector.
5. IFC invests in West African PE fund
The IFC announced an investment in Uhuru Growth Fund I, a fund managed by Uhuru Investment Partners, a middle-market private equity firm in West Africa. The fund will provide growth capital to the region’s small and medium-sized enterprises.
IFC’s support includes an equity investment of up to $10 million from IFC’s capital and an additional $10 million from the Blended Finance Facility of the International Development Association’s Private Sector Window, which helps de-risk investments in low-income countries.
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