Proparco has invested USD 30m in the pan-African fund AfricInvest IV for African SMEs

With some EUR 1.5bn of assets under management, AfricInvest has to date made over 160 investments in some 30 African countries and France. It relies on a team of 80 employees with 19 different nationalities and a wide range of complementary expertise, operating in 9 offices in Abidjan, Algiers, Cairo, Casablanca, Lagos, Nairobi, Paris, Port-Louis and Tunis.

Following on from the previous funds, the AfricInvest IV fund aims to provide growth capital to midcaps and largecaps in Africa. The focus will be on consumer-driven sectors, including financial services, the manufacturing industry, the retail industry and consumer goods, agribusiness, healthcare, education, telecommunications, logistics and distribution. The fund is seeking to develop well-positioned local companies and turn them into regional champions. It will be the group’s first entirely pan-African fund. 

Based on the performance of the predecessor fund AF III, we estimate that Proparco’s participation in the first closing of the AF IV fund should support over 22,000 indirect jobs, including over 9,000 jobs for women, in the 13 portfolio companies. This corresponds to the creation of some 160 jobs per company every year. The project should also support 16 direct jobs (in the fund itself) over the next 5 years, including 6 jobs for women.  

For many years, PROPARCO’s ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) experts have been supporting AfricInvest’s ESG team responsible for supervising about 40 ESG action plans. A technical assistance envelope has been delegated to AfricInvest to support its investee companies.