PRESS RELEASE| Rack Centre announces $100m expansion to create West Africa’s largest data centre.
LAGOS, NIGERIA, 31 August 2020 – Rack Centre, the leading carrier neutral data centre operator in West Africa, has announced an expansion programme that will increase capacity to a total net lettable white space of 6000 square metres and allow for 13MW of IT power capacity in its Lagos campus. This will be in addition…
Read MorePrivate Equity in Southern Africa: 7 takeaways from SAVCA’s latest survey
The Southern African Venture Capital and Private Equity Association (SAVCA) published its 2020 Private Equity Industry Survey, which provides insights into the activities and trends in the Southern African private equity industry for the 2019 calendar year. Here are the main takeaways from the survey. Investment activity 1. Decline in overall dealmaking. The value of…
Read MoreINVESTMENT ANNOUNCEMENT| SANARI CAPITAL BACKS LIGHTWARE LIDAR GLOBAL EXPANSION
Sanari Capital, backed by leading institutional investor 27four, is pleased to announce its R25 million (USD 1.5 million) investment in LightWare LiDAR, a South African company supplying world-class microLiDAR sensor technology to leading global companies. Established in 2012, LightWare gives ‘eyes to machines’, designing and manufacturing the world’s smallest and lightest precision LiDAR systems for…
Read MorePRESS RELEASE| SA PRIVATE EQUITY REMAINS FAVOURABLE RELATIVE TO LISTED MARKET
The latest RisCura-SAVCA South African Private Equity Performance Report reveals that the country’s private equity industry has again outperformed listed equity over the medium-term, as of December 2019. The 2019 fourth quarter report, which tracks a representative basket of private equity funds in South Africa, shows outperformance across all three listed benchmarks over the five-year…
Read MorePRESS RELEASE| PRIVATE EQUITY INDUSTRY WELL POSITIONED TO NAVIGATE COVID-19 CRISIS
After experiencing accelerated growth for the last three years, Sub-Saharan Africa is expected to go deep into contractionary territory in 2020. Highlights from the SAVCA 2020 Private Equity Industry Survey, however, indicate that the private equity industry remained resilient in the face of weak macroeconomic circumstances during the 2019 calendar year, which bodes well for…
Read MorePRESS RELEASE: Meet Thuso, the company transforming the face of South African private markets
Cape Town, July 2020 — When it comes to transformation in South African business, doing things the way they’ve always been done simply isn’t tenable. New approaches are needed. That’s what makes Thuso, a ground-breaking incubation platform in the South African asset management space, so exciting. And with South Africa’s already strained economic and social…
Read MorePRESS RELEASE: COVID-19 RELIEF SHOULD REACH SMEs
Private equity industry asks Government to ensure COVID-19 Guarantee Scheme gets relief and stimulus to where it is needed most. Many small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) breathed a brief sigh of relief in April, when President Cyril Ramaphosa announced a R200 billion Government COVID-19 loan guarantee scheme intended to support businesses with an annual turnover…
Read MorePRESS RELEASE: Sanlam launches urgent job-preservation initiative in response to COVID-19
Sanlam Investments is responding to the COVID-19 pandemic through large-scale support of the recovery of South African companies, from small enterprises to corporates that employ a large number of people. Sanlam has committed R2.25 billion of its own capital to seed three funds with the core objective of preserving and creating jobs ̶ in a…
Read MorePRESS RELEASE: Mergence Investment Managers and Third Way Investment Partners in R450-mIllion renewable energy deal
Two established, women-led black fund managers point the way for cleaner energy post-COVID Mergence Investment Managers and Third Way Investment Partners have invested R225m each to refinance a major renewable energy plant in a remote area of South Africa. The project cannot yet be named for confidentiality reasons. Both parties to the transaction have strong…
Read MorePRESS RELEASE: Tana Africa Capital acquires a minority investment into Mabaret Al Asafra, a leading healthcare group in Egypt
Tana Africa Capital (“Tana”), a leading Pan-African private equity firm, is pleased to announce the latest investment through its second fund Tana Africa Capital II (“TAC II”) into Mabaret Al Asafra (“Mabaret”) a leading hospital operator in Alexandria, Egypt. The investment was made directly into Alexandria for Healthcare Investments (“AHI”), that owns the majority stake…
Read MorePRESS RELEASE: SAVCA CALLS FOR REGULATION 28 AMENDMENTS TO SUPPORT SA’s ECONOMIC RECOVERY
Private equity and venture capital funds (‘private equity’) play a unique function in the investment marketplace because they are actively involved in growing companies and their workforces. This differentiates private equity from hedge funds, collective investment schemes and other institutional investors, which generally play no active role in the strategic growth of companies. Despite this…
Read MorePRESS RELEASE: Vantage Capital exits Vumatel
Johannesburg, South Africa – Vantage Capital, Africa’s largest mezzanine debt fund manager, announced that it has fully exited its investment in Vumatel, the largest fibre-to-the-home network provider in South Africa. The company was established in October 2014 by Niel Schoeman and Johan Pretorius, industry veterans who had previously started up the Birchman Group and Conduct…
Read MorePRESS RELEASE: PHATISA AND PARTNERS ACQUIRE SOUTHERN AFRICAN AGRICULTURAL SOLUTIONS PROVIDER FES
22 April 2020 Phatisa Food Fund 2 (PFF 2) and a group of co-investors – Norfund, Mbuyu Capital and DEG – have acquired integrated agricultural solutions provider Farming and Engineering Services Limited (FES). The investment will support FES’s long term growth strategy, assisting the company to expand its successful business model to neighbouring countries. FES,…
Read MorePrivate equity and venture capital industry pledges over 1 100 hours to assist SMMEs
April 07 2020: South African businesses are facing the battle of their lives. To ensure as many companies as possible survive the COVID-19 economic crisis, the Southern African Venture Capital and Private Equity Association (SAVCA) has launched a small, medium and micro enterprise (SMME) support platform in collaboration with is membership network, which consist of…
Read MoreR488m Green Outcomes Fund launches to grow green SMMEs in SA
The Green Outcomes Fund (GOF) is a first of its kind structure, which incentivises local South African fund managers to increase investment in green Small, Medium and Micro-sized Enterprises (SMMEs). A partnership between National Treasury’s Jobs Fund and GreenCape, with knowledge partner UCT GSB Bertha Centre for Social Innovation. Cape Town – The world urgently…
Read MoreStatement on Havaic and Custostech matter
Thank you for your concern in the matter involving the Southern African Venture Capital and Private Equity Association (SAVCA) member, HAVAÍC and its dispute with Custostech. I can confirm that SAVCA was made aware of the dispute after receiving an official complaint lodged by Custostech in December 2019, after the case had already entered into litigation.…
Read MorePRESS RELEASE: Policy interventions required to support SA companies in bridging the COVID-19 crisis
News of Edcon’s cash crisis and inability to pay suppliers is a clear warning of the serious economic damage the COVID-19 crisis is causing. Edcon has said it will work on a reopening strategy, but may fail to find a viable route without Government and other support. Edcon’s current position is not unique and will…
Read MoreThe SA venture capital and private equity industry responds to the Covid-19 crisis
The Covid-19 epidemic is an unprecedented public health and economic crisis. The private equity and venture capital industry manages R175-billion of investments in private companies, mostly small- and medium-sized businesses, on behalf of pension funds and other investors. We are at the front line of working with particularly small- and -medium sized companies to confront…
Read MoreLOCAL PRIVATE EQUITY INDUSTRY’S COMMITMENT TO COVID-19 CONTAINMENT MEASURES
In full support of President Ramaphosa’s outlined approach to contain the spread of COVID-19, the Southern African Venture Capital and Private Equity Association (SAVCA) has demonstrated its commitment to implementing the necessary protocols by instituting various internal precautionary measures, among them the introduction of virtual events to replace face-to-face gatherings, travel restrictions and flexible work-from-home…
Read MorePress Release: Introducing the African Angel Academy – Applications now open for Pilot Program!
Angel Investors are increasingly making a difference to the global start-up scene by helping promising entrepreneurs start and grow companies. The African Angel Academy (AAA) has now been established to help accelerate angel investing in Africa. Through the creation of an angel investing curriculum, tools, and mentorship from established angels, all available through an online…
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