8 Miles

"8 Miles is a private equity firm focused exclusively on making private equity investments in Africa. We invest in consumer-driven businesses and service providers with strong growth prospects. We look to partner with leading entrepreneurs and management teams, and work with them to achieve shared objectives by providing capital and operational expertise. A core part of our strategy is active ownership - actively participating in transforming businesses in which we invest. We are "hands on" investors in Africa.

At 8 Miles we have a complementary team of principals with significant experience in private equity and direct experience in successfully managing and transforming businesses in Africa. All our principals have extensive experience in developed and emerging economies, and therefore have a deep insight into the unique opportunities and challenges that Africa presents. We seek to achieve superior capital returns and accelerate the development of African companies by delivering lasting operational improvement.

Typically, we place between US$15 million and US$45 million in each investment that we make. Whilst we look at opportunities from growth equity to more complex buyouts, our strategy is essentially quite simple. We invest in African businesses and sectors with high growth prospects, and enhance performance by implementing our "active ownership" approach to manage the investment. We believe the combination of careful selection and hands-on involvement leads to better performance.

We work with highly motivated entrepreneurs and managers and ensure all stakeholder interests are completely aligned. We aim to take majority or influential minority positions in companies, and work closely with like-minded stakeholders to devise and implement operational changes to the business. Some of these changes appear straightforward - management controls, proper training and incentivisation, alignment of interests, analytically-driven decision making, and so forth - but they help ensure that the companies we work with have a competitive advantage relative to their peer group.

Our collective experience in Africa has taught us that value creation requires the key discipline to do simple things well; applying proven best practice and transferring skills, rather than re-inventing the wheel. Our "active ownership" philosophy integrates governance and operational change programmes. By leveraging our operational expertise, we look to create market leading African businesses. This leads to sustainable growth and value creation for all stakeholders.

8 Miles has identified target geographies and sectors where its investment approach can be best implemented. We focus on countries with strong macroeconomic fundamentals, good governance, a favourable regime for foreign investors, and a track record of private sector reforms which make doing business easier.

8 Miles focuses on consumer driven businesses and service providers with strong growth prospects. Typical sectors which we consider include:

• Agribusiness
• Business and Financial Services
• Consumer Goods and Retail
• Energy and Utilities
• Healthcare and Pharmaceutical
• Hospitality and Real Estate
• Telecom, Media and Technology
• Transport and Logistics

http://www.8miles.com/index.php 

Tana Africa Capital

Tana Africa Capital is an Africa-focused investment company founded by E. Oppenheimer & Son International Ltd and Temasek. Through the medium of capital and business building support, Tana aims to build African business institutions for generations to come. In doing so, Tana is able to draw on the rich heritage, vast experience and extensive networks of its founding shareholders as well as the on-the-ground African knowledge and operating experience of its management team. Like its namesake, Ethiopia’s Lake Tana (the source of the Blue Nile), Tana aims to serve as a fount of development, leaving an enduring, tangible and positive legacy on the businesses which it supports.

Investment Approach

Tana’s investment approach is predicated on the following three core principles:

Active Investment Management

Tana is an active, value orientated investor that engages positively and in a collaborative fashion with the boards and management of the companies in which it invests. Tana prioritises the institutionalisation of business practices such as business leadership, financial discipline, operational excellence and sound corporate governance. In doing so, it is able to draw on its investment team’s deep experience in strategy and operations across Africa.

Long-Term Investment Focus

The value-adding, partnership approach is supported by the fact that Tana limits the number of companies in which it invests, focusing its efforts on companies that can serve as platforms for domestic and regional expansion. Developing such enduring businesses will, at times, require the adoption of lengthy investment time horizons. The flexibility that Tana has in terms of investment holding periods originates from the fact that it has been established as an evergreen investment company and has as its founding shareholders investors that have achieved great success from eschewing the short termism that dominates much of the investment world.

Clear Sector Focus

Tana’s investment activities are focused on two primary sectors: Consumer and Agriculture. This clear sector focus brings with it deep industry expertise and extensive networks, greatly enhancing the positive impact that Tana can have on the companies in which it invests. 

Focus Sectors and Investment Criteria

Tana invests between US$20 million and US$75 million to acquire significant minority or control equity positions in established businesses across Africa that operate within the Consumer and Agriculture sectors.

Consumer Focus

Companies well positioned to meet the consumption needs of Africa’s young, energetic and growing population are core to Tana’s Consumer sector focus. There is tremendous economic and social value in satisfying the food, beverage and personal care consumer good needs of the African populace, providing the building materials required to house the growing number of households, and offering the logistical support needed to produce and deliver these goods.

Within the Consumer sector, Tana focuses its efforts on:

• Food, beverage and personal care fast moving consumer goods
• Building materials
• Retail
• Logistics

We also consider select opportunities in Consumer Financial Services, Media, Healthcare and Education.

Agriculture Focus

Africa, which has the largest reservoir of undeveloped arable land in the world, will play a pivotal role in the decades ahead in ensuring that the food requirements of a rapidly growing world population are met. Tana will be there to support the development of the crucial Agriculture sector, investing along the agricultural value chain from agricultural inputs (fertilizer, crop protection and equipment) to downstream opportunities in processing, storage and logistics.

Investment Criteria

Tana has a preference for companies operating in these sectors that have the following characteristics:

• Talented and visionary entrepreneur/majority shareholder/management team
• Large, addressable and rapidly growing market
• Minimal public sector dependency
• Attractive industry structure with proven, profitable and sustainable business model
• Highly scalable business with standardised and repeatable processes
• Internal expansion opportunities, as well as potential for add-on acquisitions
• Distinct competitive advantage driving strong market position
• Clearly identifiable and implementable levers for value creation
• Appropriate corporate governance

Utho

"Utho SME Infrastructure Fund

The Utho SME Infrastructure Fund was established by Utho Capital Fund Managers (Pty) Ltd. The fund achieved a first closing in April 2011 of R61.5 million with commitments from the Industrial Development Corporation (“IDC”), the Small Enterprise Finance Agency (“sefa” previously known as Sefa) and the founder Utho Capital. The Fund Manager is seeking to raise additional capital commitments to secure total fund commitments of R120–300 million.

The Fund seeks to achieve long term capital gains by investing in high growth Small and Medium Enterprises (“SMEs”) involved in “infrastructure development” which encompasses various types of businesses involved in construction, manufacturing, material suppliers, transport, logistics, power, renewable energy and property development in South Africa.

The fund has closed four investments West Coast Power Solutions (a renewable energy business), Bantsho Homes and Maintenance (a construction company), Richards Family Investment Properties (a property development company) and WHTP Construction. 

The challenge and opportunity for the fund is to identify small to medium sized companies with strong management and the ability to scale up rapidly with the right level of support, to enhance the portfolio companies’ value. Utho Capital Fund Managers will assist these businesses with not only the provision of capital but value-added committed and practical hands on business support services in respect of strategy, fund raising, financial controls and reporting..."

http://www.utho.co.za/ 

InfraCo Africa

"Catalysing private sector investment by developing infrastructure projects in sub-Saharan Africa to stimulate economic development

InfraCo Africa is a multi-government funded, privately managed company providing early stage development capital and expertise to develop infrastructure projects in sub-Saharan Africa. It acts as an ‘honest broker’ seeking to create viable infrastructure investment opportunities that balance the interests of host governments, the national and international private sector and providers of finance.

Sectors

Energy & Power

InfraCo Africa seeks to develop power generation, transmission and distribution projects, including rural electrification. Projects will be environmentally responsible and economically feasible, for example, gas-fired and other forms of renewable energy supplies.

Water & Sanitation

InfraCo Africa seeks to develop water and waste services in the areas of urban/rural fresh water production and treatment, supply and distribution, sanitation, solid waste disposal/collection and waste treatment plants, as well as  bulk water supply.

Transportation

InfraCo Africa will provide transport infrastructure services through the active development of fixed and moveable transport infrastructure and services including roads, bridges, tunnels, rails systems and services, airports, bus lines, ports and harbours

Other infrastructure

In addition to power, water and transport, InfraCo Africa may consider investment in the following sectors:

• Bulk Storage/Logistics Facilities
• Telecommunications
• Gas transportation, distribution and storage
• Oil transportation, distribution, storage (excluding export projects)
• Mining: but only where investment expands the provision of infrastructure and associated services and where the owner agrees to allow third party use of the assets.
• Urban infrastructure: the provision of economic and social infrastructure within towns and cities (including low cost housing).
• Agriculture-supporting infrastructure: including storage, basic processing facilities and irrigation services.
• Other: other activities that impact positively on the development of a country’s basic infrastructure and promote the objectives of InfraCo Africa . Such activities may include the infrastructure component of industrial, agro-tourism or agro-industrial projects.

Regional Trade Corridors

InfraCo Africa is seeking to invest in several projects that promote Regional Trade Corridors (RTC) in any of the sectors listed above. An RTC project is defined as the following:

Regional Trade Corridors link centres of economic activity in one or more adjoining countries, connect countries separated by one or more transit countries, or provide access to the sea for landlocked countries.

The relevant project must be a trans-border infrastructure project or a national project with a demonstrable regional impact on two or more countries, as evidenced by the value of the project’s cross border share of goods and services, demonstrated by the amount of increased cross border financial flows.

• Eligible sectors for projects are transport (rail, road, air, maritime and inland waterways, ports/terminals), energy, water, trade infrastructure and Information Technology – though it is anticipated that the majority of funding will be in the first two categories.
• Innovative projects with a clear replication potential will be considered (eg. linking to natural resource corridors or to growth poles)
• InfraCo will only look at pursuing projects that address its overall PIDG logframe targets, which were defined in the ARD proposal (eg one logframe target relates to the amount of private sector investment mobilised measured by the PSI ratio:>1:15 InfraCo Africa (RTC):Private Sector Investment), while others relate to geography and number of deals sold to the private sector. Further information on the InfraCo logframe and proposed RTC metrics are shown in the Annex 1.
• For the avoidance of doubt, infrastructure projects with purely national impact are not eligible...."

http://www.infracoafrica.com/ 

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