Major Transactions

Mergers and Acquisitions, Private Equity and Funds

Advised Actis and Ethos in relation to their acquisition of the repairs and services and replacement parts business of Delta DMS, together with Delta's equity interest in a wire and coil business.
Advised Actis in the acquisition of Peters Papers (a division of Nampak).
Acting for Actis in their proposed acquisition of Alexander Forbes.

Deneys Reitz/ Africa Legal advised AIG Capital Partners, advisers to the AIG Global Emerging Markets Fund II, L.P. (the "Fund"), on all South African and pan-African aspects of the Fund's recently completed acquisition of a significant minority stake in African mass-market credit provider Blue Financial Services, which has operations in South Africa, Botswana, Zambia and Tanzania and which is expanding into Kenya, Uganda and Cameroon. Our role included performing a legal due diligence on Blue's operations in South Africa, Botswana and Zambia, together with a review of the financial regulatory environment, and advised on the local law aspects of the acquisition documents, including security aspects. We also co-ordinated local advice from Botswana and Zambia.

Advised Aureos Capital (a leading Mauritius based SMME emerging markets manager and investor of private equity funds, owned by Actis, EIB and Norfund) in relation to various debt and equity investments throughout Africa. The most recent transactions involve the debt and equity funding of the rapidly growing financial services group, Real People Investment Holdings, which is currently expanding into various African markets as well as the debt and equity funding of a Nigerian telecommunications services provider and a South African catering equipment supplier.

Acting as lead legal adviser in connection with the investment by CDC Group Plc, FMO, Shell Foundation, BIO and Triodos Bank in connection with the establishment of the GroFin East Africa Fund (structured via Mauritius).
Advised CDC in relation to the proposed Horizon III Fund and the proposed Vantage Mezzanine Fund. Other proposed investors in Horizon include Sifem and Finnfund.

Advised FirstRand in its acquisition of an 80% interest in the Mozambican bank Banco de Desenvolvimento e Comércio ("BDC"). The acquisition included a minority stake in Interbancos, a card reading, automatic teller machines, cell phone banking and clearing company. The transaction involved 4 jurisdictions (Portugal, Mozambique, United Kingdom and South Africa).
Advised FirstRand Bank on its acquisition of Celpay Holdings BV, a mobile payments operator with operations in Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo, from Celtel International. Also advised on the subsequent restructuring of Celpay.

Advised FMO in respect of several debt/ quasi-debt investments and funds in South, West and East Africa, including investments in Ghana, Mauritius, South Africa, Uganda, and Mozambique.

Advised Norfund in respect of a debt and equity investment in a micro-finance institution in East Africa.

The establishment of the Pan Africa Infrastructure Development Fund ("PAIDF") is an initiative by the New Partnership for Africa (NEPAD) and is backed by the South African government and the Public Investment Corporation (PIC), South Africa's largest investor of pension funds. PAIDF's purpose is to create an investment platform for much needed basic infrastructure in Africa, to accelerate growth for sustainable development in Africa. Deneys Reitz/ Africa Legal advised the Pan African Infrastructure Development Fund Facilitation Trust, formed to establish and to raise financing for the PAIDF, in relation to various aspects of the proposed establishment of the PAIDF and its fundraising exercise (including regulatory issues). Proposed fund value is $3 billion.

Currently advising the Manager of a proposed Fund in relation to the establishment of the fund (Mauritius based), including in relation to the issuing of the PPM, fund structure, fundraising and all key fund and shareholder documentation.

Currently advising the Manager of a micro-finance specialised Fund in relation to its recapitalisation and restructuring and various aspects relating to the fund structure and incentivisation of the Manager.

Note: Some transactions may be listed in more than one category.

We have listed some of our recent pan-African transactions, divided into various categories.

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Feel free to speak to any of the Africa Legal Team members if you would like more information about the work we do or areas of specialisation.