Deal Round-Up: AfricInvest announces financial services fund

Jack Aldane

6 years ago

The founders of AfricInvest (originally Tuninvest): Abdelkefi, Aziz Mebarek, Karim Trad and Ziad Oueslati

AfricInvest, a pan-African private equity firm, has confirmed the close of the Financial Inclusion Vehicle (FIVE), its platform for investing in financial institutions in Africa. FMO and BIO have committed €20 million and €10 million to the vehicle respectively.
In addition, AfricInvest has raised US$1.7 million for Morocco-based video content start-up Buzzkito. The funds have been raised through a Series A round financing from the Tunisia-based private equity fund, which manages US$1 billion in assets and more than 140 portfolio investments.
International Finance Corporation (IFC), has put together a financing package of a maximum of US$188 million for the largest solar photovoltaic (PV) power plant in Jordan to date—the latest in a series of efforts to boost renewable energy investments in a country faced with increased energy demand, in part driven by the growing refugee crisis.
IFC has also announced its new signing of a €65 million financing facility with Société Burkinabè des Fibres Textiles (SOFITEX) to finance the 2017-2018 cotton campaign in Burkina Faso to encourage production.
Proparco has granted a US$5 million loan to the Kashf Foundation microfinance institution in Pakistan for the financial inclusion and female empowerment of the country.
DEG, Germany’s development finance institution, has provided €4 million to Ethiopia’s cashless mobile money platform M-BIRR. The firm has attracted investment for helping to improve access to banking services in Ethiopia. Other investors in M-BIRR include the European Investment Bank (EIB), as well as the Finnish development finance agency Finnfund, which has been a shareholder in M-BIRR for six years.
LeapFrog Investments has sold its stake in frontier markets mobile insurer BIMA to Allianz X in a US$96.6m transaction. Allianz X, the digital investment arm of German insurance company Allianz, has invested in the microinsurance provider, which provides insurance and medical consultations via mobile phones to more than 20 million customers in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
The Inter-American Development Bank’s private arm, IDB Invest, has agreed a US$1 billion senior, unsecured A-B loan loan package with Empresas Públicas de Medellín (EPM) to build a 2,400 megawatt hydropower facility in the northern region of Antioquia, Colombia. Ituango will be the largest hydropower project in the country.