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 

Harith General Partners

"The name Harith is a North African word with a dual meaning “Plough and protector”. Harith sees itself as ploughing the African continent and planting seeds of much needed infrastructure, whilst protecting the interest of its investors. 

Headquartered in Sandton, South Africa, Harith has representative offices in Ghana, Tunisia and London. Harith has directly sown the seeds of infrastructure in over seven countries in the continent, as well as indirectly in a number of countries across Africa.

The sectors we are actively invested in are broad and range from communication, technology, transport, energy, water and sanitation. Our investment approach has been systematic and regional in its thrust and emphasis hence our investments, looked at in a different way, cover West, East, North and Southern Africa. Harith also owns 100% of London-based FMFML...."

http://www.harith.co.za/index.php?/about-us 

Investec Principal Investments

"Principal Investments

Investec’s principal investments include private equity and BEE transactions.

Finding a BEE partner for your company requires resources such as funding, contacts and expertise. Access all the resources you need with our passionate team of equity specialists.

A combination of entrepreneurial operators and financiers, we offer sustainable returns through solid investing, strategic involvement and trusted partnership development over the long-term.

With us you get:

•        Access to international markets and contacts.
•        An international corporate and investments bank.  
•        The dynamic entrepreneurial minds of our people.

Delivering returns for more than ten years, we have a remarkable track record of successful partnerships with respected brands across the globe...."

 

 https://www.investec.co.za/products-and-services/advisory-services/principal-investments.html

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/ 

•  

Development Bank of South Africa (DBSA)

"Company Profile

The Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA) is a state owned entity with the purpose of accelerating sustainable socio-economic development and improve the quality of life of the people of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) by driving financial and non-financial investments in the social and economic infrastructure sectors 

• Social infrastructure: Infrastructure aimed at addressing backlogs and expediting the delivery of essential social services to support sustainable living conditions and a better quality of life within communities 
• Economic infrastructure: Infrastructure aimed at addressing capacity constraints and bottlenecks in order to optimise economic growth potential

The DBSA has prioritised water, energy, transport and ICT as its key focus areas.

Mandate

The Government through Act. 13 of 1997 mandated the DBSA to: 

• Promote economic development and growth, human resources development and institutional capacity in the region 
• Support sustainable development projects and programmes in the region 
• Focus on infrastructure and leverage the private sector...."

http://www.dbsa.org/EN/Pages/default.aspx 

Via Capital

"Via Capital was established with the buy-out of much of the Specialised Finance business of Imperial Bank Limited by a combination of management and empowerment interests. A majority of Via Capital’s share capital is held by its empowerment partners.

Via Capital’s management team has developed a reputation for product innovation, bridging the relative complexity of sophisticated financing products with the particular business requirements of operators in the transport sector."

http://www.viacapital.co.za/about-us/company-profile/