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. RMB Corvest acquires stake in education group
RMB Corvest has made an investment in South African education company Inscape.
Established in 1981, the Inscape Education Group is a South African registered, private higher education institution with five campuses in three provinces: Gauteng, KwaZulu Natal and the Western Cape. The institution offers 10 accredited contact learning programmes and three accredited distance learning programmes with specialisations in design, communication and the built environment. These range from undergraduate higher certificates to postgraduate degrees. Additionally, Inscape provides a growing selection of short courses offered primarily through e-learning. Inscape’s sister company in Dubai operates as a registered training facility in the Dubai Design District.
2. Nigerian B2B retail platform raises $10.5m, led by Nosara Capital
Alerzo, a business-to-business technology and services platform focused on Nigeria’s informal retail sector, announced $10.5 million in series A funding. The round was led by Nosara Capital, with participation by Galaxy Digital, the family office of Michael Novogratz, FJ Labs, and several family offices from the US, Europe and Asia.
This brings the company’s total funding to more than $20 million. Alerzo’s early investors include the Baobab Network, an Africa-focused accelerator based in London, and Signal Hill, a Singapore-based fund manager.
3. MCB Equity Fund invests in Africa Mobile Networks
MCB Equity Fund, the private equity arm of MCB Group, the largest banking group in Mauritius, announced the acquisition of a minority stake in Africa Mobile Networks Ltd (AMN) as part of a consortium led by Metier, an independent African private equity manager.
The consortium, which includes CDC Group (the UK’s development finance institution and impact investor), Deutsche Investitions- und Entwicklungsgesellschaft mbH (Germany’s development finance institution), Proparco (the private sector arm of the French Development Agency) and other institutions, has invested $36 million into AMN. As part of the transaction, the consortium is also acquiring $3.5 million of existing shares and in total will own a significant minority shareholding in AMN.
AMN builds and operates mobile network base stations in partnership with tier-1 licensed mobile network operators such as MTN, Orange and Vodafone to extend their rural coverage. AMN provides a full turnkey NaaS (Network as a Service) approach to enable mobile network operators in sub-Saharan Africa to expand their coverage deep into rural areas with no capital expenditure or operating equipment risk borne by the mobile operators in these remote locations. AMN currently operates about 2,000 mobile network base stations in rural towns and villages across 10 countries.
4. Oasis Capital invests in Côte d’Ivoire’s insurance sector
Oasis Capital Ghana, manager of the Oasis Africa VC Fund (OAF), has announced a dual minority investment in Côte d’Ivoire’s Sonam Générale Assurances Côte d’Ivoire and Sonam Assurances Vie Côte d’Ivoire.
Sonam Générale Assurances CI is a non-life insurance company located in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire and a subsidiary of the pan-African Sonam Group. The company focuses on the underwriting, distribution and servicing of non-life insurance products (automobile, health and accident, transportation, fire and property, public liability coverage and other diverse risks) to individuals and SMEs.
Sonam Assurances Vie Côte d’Ivoire, formerly Axa Vie Côte d’Ivoire, will offer innovative life insurance products/services. The vision for Sonam Assurances Vie Côte d’Ivoire is to become a prominent player in the life insurance sector over next five years.
5. South Africa: Competition Tribunal asked to reconsider ECP-Burger King deal
Grand Parade Investments has advised shareholders that it has reached agreement with South Africa’s Competition Commission on a revised set of conditions that address the public interest concerns regarding the sale of Burger King South Africa to private equity firm Emerging Capital Partners (ECP).
In June, the Competition Commission revealed that it has prohibited the transaction whereby funds advised by ECP intended to acquire Burger King South Africa and Grand Foods Meat Plant from Grand Parade Investments. The commission found that the merger would lead to a significant reduction in the shareholding of historically disadvantaged persons in the target firm, from more than 68% to 0% as a result of the merger.
The parties have submitted a request to the Competition Tribunal to reconsider and approve the proposed transaction, subject to the draft conditions. The hearing to consider the merging parties’ request for the Competition Tribunal to approve the proposed transaction, subject to the draft conditions, took place on 18 August 2021. Grand Parade Investments said shareholders will be advised on the outcome of the hearing in due course.
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