Actis announces its fifth Africa deal in a month

Actis, the emerging private equity firm, has announced its fifth African deal in the space of a month by taking a minority stake in Tunisian conglomerate Poulina Group Holding.

The UK Government-backed firm took a small stake in PGH, which is valued at $745m and has the highest market capitalisation on the Tunisia Stock Exchange with 10% of its shares listed. PGH is involved a range of industries including in food, retail, packaging and building materials.

The investment, the firm’ second in Tunisia, was made by Actis™ Canada Investment Fund for Africa, which is now almost fully invested.

Actis, which was spun-off from CDC in 2004 and invests exclusively in emerging markets, has carried out five deals in Africa since this time last month.

It announced the $700m takeover of electrical engineering company Alstom South Africa at the beginning of this month, and late last month it invested $48.5m in Mo’men Group for Foods, an Egyptian food business.

This came shortly after two deals in Nigeria. The firm partially divested its 20.5% stake of food conglomerate UAC and exited Starcomms, the fourth-largest telecommunications operator in Nigeria.

The deals follow a significant increase in investment by private equity firms into Africa in recent years. Between 2003, when there were just four buyouts worth a combined $75m, and last year, when firms completed 24 deals totalling $6.4bn, the value of such deals increased by 8,433%, according to data provider Dealogic So far this year, there have been 18 deals worth $1.9bn in total.

In June, African firm Tuninvest wrapped up a nearly two-year long process of raising a $192.8m second fund focused on the Maghreb region.

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Actis announces its fifth Africa deal in a month

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