Johannesburg, South Africa – Vantage Risk Capital, Africa’s leading mezzanine debt provider, today announced it had provided mezzanine debt funding for the 100% acquisition of Reatile Timrite (“Timrite”), a leading supplier of mining support products, by Thebe Investment Corporation and the management team of Timrite. Vantage will also make available expansion capital to Timrite to fund the company’s future growth plans. Total funding committed by Vantage amounts to R90m.

Vantage’s Fund II provides R90m in mezzanine debt funding for the acquisition of Reatile Timrite, a leading supplier of mining support products, by Thebe Investment Corporation

Johannesburg, South Africa – Vantage Risk Capital, Africa’s leading mezzanine debt provider, today announced it had provided mezzanine debt funding for the 100% acquisition of Reatile Timrite (“Timrite”), a leading supplier of mining support products, by Thebe Investment Corporation and the management team of Timrite. Vantage will also make available expansion capital to Timrite to fund the company’s future growth plans. Total funding committed by Vantage amounts to R90m.

Timrite is a market leading and fully integrated supplier of timber based mining support products to the mining industry. The company also supplies non-timber based mining support products such as polymer bags and steel sleeves. Timrite’s value chain consists of a timber plantation, sawmilling operations, assembly plants and a state of the art research and development centre.

Colin Rezek, Managing Partner at Vantage said: “Vantage and Thebe have a longstanding relationship stemming from a Thebe investment in the chemicals sector, Safripol, which Vantage funded a few years ago. Vantage is excited at the prospect of working with Thebe and the management team of Timrite to grow Timrite into a world class company providing mining support products to mining companies across the African continent.”

Mokgome Mogoba, Associate Partner at Vantage added: “Timrite’s products are designed to meet all mining standards imposed by the Department of Minerals and Resources and the mines. These standards are developed in an effort to reduce the risk of mine fatalities. This is something that Vantage is passionate about.”

Mr. Vusi Khanyile, Thebe’s Executive Chairman further added: “The acquisition reinforces Thebe’s commitment to investing in businesses that are crucial in the mining value-chain and more importantly in building communities.”

The acquisition of Timrite by Thebe and the management team of Timrite was funded through mezzanine debt funding from Vantage, senior debt funding from Standard Bank and equity funding from Thebe and the management team of Timrite.

ENDS

Notes to Editors

About Vantage Risk Capital

Vantage Capital Group is a majority black-owned fund manager with over R3 billion under management. Its capital has been sourced from 30 institutions including many leading African pension funds like the Public Investment Corporation (PIC) in South Africa and the Debswana Pension Fund in Botswana, development funders such as the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA) and the Norwegian Fund for Development (Norfund), and private sector endowments such as the Kellogg Foundation from the United States.

Mezzanine is an intermediate form of risk capital which is situated between senior debt, the least risky tranche of the capital structure, and equity, the most risky. It combines elements of both debt and equity thereby providing companies with long-term funding on terms which are less dilutive to shareholders than pure equity.

Website: www.vantagecapital.co.za

About Thebe Investment Corporation

Thebe Investment Corporation is an African investment management firm which was founded in 1992 as a wholly-owned entity of the Batho-Batho Trust established by anti-apartheid stalwarts, Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, Enos Mabuza, and Beyers Naudé.

Thebe’s founders established the company to promote socio-economic transformation through the economic participation of the previously marginalized South Africans.

In this regard, Thebe is unique in the sense that it does not exist only to make a profit, but to drive community development through assisting communities to be actively involved in sustainable wealth creation.

Thebe has a proud history of being an entrepreneurial wealth creator. Under the guidance of founding CEO and executive chairman, Vusi Khanyile, Thebe has grown an initial capital investment of R100,000 into an investment portfolio of assets worth over R6 billion.

Thebe’s portfolio consist of 31 investee companies which operate in sectors such as financial services, tourism, petroleum, renewable energy, mining, media, telecoms, property, and construction.

Thebe has grown its portfolio through either starting greenfield businesses and acquiring controlling or minority stakes in operating companies.

Thebe successfully established South Africa’s first regional airline SA Express, fuel retailer Tepco Petroleum, and commercial radio station Kaya FM. Tepco was later merged into Shell SA when Thebe bought a 25% stake in the petroleum company in 2002.

To date, Thebe has made large acquisitions in blue-chip companies (both global and South African) such as Shell, Vodacom, Compass Group, Combined Motor Holdings, Altech Netstar, and Safripol.

Thebe has a skilled team of investment professionals, which originates and executes transactions. Post transaction conclusion, the team actively partners with the investee companies to grow their market share in the industries they operate in.

Thebe’s community development initiatives are driven by the Thebe Foundation, an independent trust, whose focus areas are education and the promotion of enterprise development in previously disadvantaged communities.

Through the foundation’s intervention, thousands of learners in Mpumalanga, KwaZulu-Natal, and Eastern Cape are benefiting from the rollout of its programmes that seek to improve numeracy, literacy, maths and science skills.

In Gauteng, about 120 SMME owners have gone through a 12-week business management course sponsored by the Thebe Foundation. The course is offered by the University of Johannesburg (UJ).

The foundation also assigns Thebe executives to mentor the UJ graduates (entrepreneurs), who are given critical skills in growing their businesses. The foundation is also assisting some of the SMMEs to supply products and services to Thebe group of companies.

Website: www.thebe.co.za