Vantage's $28mln Servest financing, Synergy's Viathan deal, IFC's $50mln Africa Oil deal and others make african private capital news last week

August 24th, 2015

The weekly roundup of Africa's Private Capital news

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Each week we sift through most Africa-related private equity, infrastructure and venture capital deal news stories, market opinion articles and information pieces and winnow them down to those we feel are the most important and interesting for investors, companies and their advisors. Here's the latest issue, covering all happenings over the last 7 days. We hope you find the service useful. We'd be delighted if you shared it with any interested colleagues and/or partners. If they would like to receive their own weekly copy, they're more than welcome to sign up here.

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The week in brief...

In what was otherwise a quiet week for private capital investing in Africa, a couple of interesting and somewhat uncommon deals were announced last week. In the first, mezzanine fund manager Vantage Capital is providing almost $28 million in financing to the senior management team of facilities management firm Servest. The financing will allow them to take greater equity participation as part of Kagiso Tiso Holding's buyout of the company, a deal which was originally announced in late June.

In the second, Paris-based private equity firm Amethis Finance has pulled together a consortium of investors that includes some of its own LPs as well as regular investment partner EuroMena Funds for a convertible loan deal with Nigerian paper products group Elephant Africa Holdings. Once converted the consortium will end up with a minority equity stake in the company. And, in a more run-of the-mill transaction,

Synergy Capital announced it has successfully completed a deal to take an undisclosed stake in Viathan Engineering, a developer of captive and embedded power systems in Nigeria. The capital will be used to restructure the company's balance sheet as well as scale up its generation and distribution capabilities.

In DFI news, Africa Oil, the oil and gas exploration company that counts Helios Investment Partners among its shareholders, announced that it is raising $50 million from the IFC in a private placement offering. The deal looks set to close on August 31st, subject to regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions. Once completed, the deal gives IFC a 6.83% stake in the company.

Bloomberg reports that IHS Towers, the mobile communications infrastructure company backed by a number of leading private equity and infrastructure funds, is said to be in initial talks to acquire tower assets from South Africa's MTN Group in a deal that would be worth as much as $2 billion. While MTN apparently favors a transaction with IHS, a deal has not been agreed and still may not happen.

And finally, a profile of James Mworia, CEO of Kenyan Investment company Centum Investments caught our eye. Having joined the company n 2002 as an intern, (although admittedly an overqualified one), within seven years he was the company's CEO.

You can review these and other stories by scrolling down and reviewing the headlines, abstracts and links.

Deal News...

Private Equity

Vantage backs Servest management with $28mln // africacapitaldigest.com

Africa's largest mezzanine fund manager, Vantage Capital, announced that it is providing almost $28 million in fundi ng to over 30 managers at pan-African facilities management company Servest to support greater equity participation by the management team as part of investment company Ka giso Tiso Holdings' buyout of the compan y which was announced in late June. Terms of the financing were not disclosed.