North Africa: Proparco is supporting SMEs experiencing strong growth or transformation phases.

SPE AIF I is a private equity fund managed by SPE Capital, which focuses on North Africa (especially Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia) and the industry, health and education sectors. It targets majority or minority controlling equity operations in SMEs experiencing strong growth or facing transfer/transformation issues.  

Proparco made a USD 20,000,000 subscription to the second closing of the SPE AIF I fund in December 2019, alongside other development banks such as DEG, CDC UK, EIB, EBRD, IBD, and AfDB.

For this fund, whose strategy is to invest in companies that meet the needs of middle classes in North Africa, the main expected impacts are as follows:  

• Support for some 3,000 indirect jobs in 10 SMEs, including 700 jobs for women.
• Training for a total of 600 employees thanks to the expenditure on training of the companies invested in, ranging between 1 and 5% of their payroll.
• Significant contributions from the companies invested in to the tax revenues of the underlying companies in North Africa.
• Directly, the recruitment by SPE Capital of new employees in Tunisia, Morocco and Egypt, with a total of 25 employees, including 8 women, over the next 5 years.