Our Private Equity team offers comprehensive business and legal expertise throughout the entire investment lifecycle. We help clients across Africa and the UAE.
We advise on fund structuring and regulatory compliance, execute growth equity and buyout transactions, navigate local content and ESG imperatives, and facilitate high-value exits, delivering coordinated pan-African solutions for general partners, limited partners, and portfolio companies.
Africa’s private equity is an attractive emerging market driven by sectors such as financial services, cleantech, healthcare, and consumer goods, amid currency challenges and a flight to quality investments.
We deliver integrated legal, business, and transactional expertise across Africa and the UAE to a diverse clientele, including:
Our on-the-ground presence in key markets enables clients to structure funds efficiently, deploy capital seamlessly, manage portfolio risks, and achieve optimal exits in a maturing ecosystem.
Our extensive services support the entire private equity lifecycle, providing tailored guidance for investments in Africa and the UAE, and this includes:
Representative transactions include advising:
A private equity firm, in connection with its acquisition of approximately 24% of the shares in ICEA Lion Insurance Holdings from First Chartered Securities, the holding company of the ICEA group of companies which undertakes insurance business in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania.
In connection with the acquisition of a majority of the share capital of Engie’s interest in upstream petroleum activities in Algeria.
In connection with their initial and subsequent equity investment in a 14.3% of stake in Britam Holdings, a Kenyan listed insurance and asset management group with operations in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Malawi, South Sudan and Mozambique.
A US based Private Equity fund, in connection with the sale of its stake in Java House, East Africa’s leading coffee-led casual dining chain in Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Tanzania, to Abraaj Group, a leading investor operating in growth markets
In connection with the development of an A-Grade product-specific warehouse and logistics park, on a 103-acre piece of land along Nairobi’s Eastern Bypass.
as lead international counsel in connection with their investment into Stratton Africa Holdings (Stratton), a Mauritian holding company for Merec Industries, Maputo Grain Terminal and Merec Mozambique, a wheat importation and value chain company based in Mozambique.
In connection with a USD 10 million investment into a Series B Financing Round in Solarise Group, a pan- African company that focuses on leasing, financing and investing in the renewable energy sector.
In connection with the development of a financial centre in Kigali Rwanda.
A leading Africa-focused private equity fund, in connection with the disposal of its stake of 24.99% of its shareholding in Equity Group Holdings, a company listed on the Nairobi Securities Exchange, the Uganda Stock Exchange and the Rwanda Stock Exchange, through a series of different transactions with multiple buyers, as well as on-market and off-market sales, and which is to date the largest private equity exit successfully completed in sub-Saharan Africa.
A global impact fund led by TPG, a private equity firm, in connection with the acquisition of 100% of the shares of Cellulant Corporation, a leading digital payments’ service provider with ten subsidiaries in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Zambia, Malawi, Mozambique, Ghana and Zimbabwe.
A holding company owning eight East African companies active in the pharmaceutical industry, and a leading distributor of pharmaceutical products in Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi and the largest manufacturer of parenteral in Uganda in connection with the exit by AfricInvest and acquisition by the Carlyle Group, an American based multinational equity fund, of a majority of the issued share capital in AK Life Sciences, a subsidiary of Kiboko Holdings.