Adiwale Partners Made Final Close Of It’s First Fund For Investment In Francophone Africa

Private equity firm Adiwale Partners has made a final close of its first fund, nearly two years after making a first close and four months after striking the maiden deal from the investment vehicle.

The PE firm, which focuses on Francophone West Africa, closed the Adiwale Fund I at €60 million ($70 million). This is a fifth short of its original target of €75 million.

The fund had made a first close at around €50 million. It recently received a commitment of €9 million from International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private-sector investment arm of the World Bank.

The fund had previously attracted a number of LPs, including development finance institutions as well as commercial investors, from Africa, Europe and North America. These included the UK’s CDC Group Plc and the African Development Bank. Other LPs included the Dutch Good Growth Fund (DGGF), Kuramo Capital Management and the West African Development Bank (BOAD).

Adiwale Fund I will invest between €3 million and €8 million per transaction largely in SMEs established in Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal, Mali and Burkina Faso. It may also invest in Benin, Togo and Guinea.

“We are now in a position to build an attractive portfolio of growing assets,” Adiwale managing partners Jean-Marc Savi de Tové and Vissého Gnassounou. “These assets will be very attractive companies for larger private equity players as well as for the equity markets.”

The fund’s main investment themes are: increasing average household incomes and changing consumption habits, developing local supply chains, import substitution and upstream integration of supply chains. It is chasing companies across sectors like consumer products and services, health and education, business services (transport and logistics, information and communications, and construction services) and industry (chemicals and pharmaceuticals).

In June, it had picked up a minority stake in Maintenance Climatisation Technique (MCT) in its maiden deal.

Led by Lamine Koné, MCT is a six-decade-old company. It installs and maintains industrial, commercial and residential air conditioning systems in Ivory Coast. It also offers electrical engineering services and operates in 11 countries in French-speaking Sub-Saharan Africa, and is a local partner for global air conditioning major Carrier.

– CapitalQuest