The fund, launched in early 2023, has attracted investment from African pension funds and other local institutional investors, along with development finance institutions.
Africa-focused private equity firm Adenia Partners said its Adenia Capital V fund, which invests in medium-sized companies across the continent, had reached a final close at its $470m (€433m) upper limit, with commitments from both new and existing investors.
The fund, which Adenia said had been “significantly oversubscribed”, attracted 60% of its investments from previous investors in its funds, mainly development finance institutions (DFIs). These included Germany’s DEG, the European Investment Bank, Dutch DFI FMO, the International Finance Corporation, France’s Proparco, Switzerland’s SIFEM and Mauritius-registered South Suez Capital. It said existing investors more than doubled their commitments to Adenia on average.
The new investors comprising the other 40% of commitments included DFIs, such as the US International Development Finance Corporation, Findev Canada, and Norfund. Others included local African institutional investors, such as South Africa’s Public Investment Corporation, Kenyan and Ghanaian pension funds, European family offices, Blue Earth and other impact investors and an unnamed US foundation.
Stéphane Bacquaert, managing partner at Adenia Partners, said the high level of interest in the new fund was a validation for the firm’s strategy and for investment opportunities in Africa.
“We are particularly pleased to have attracted African pension funds, given our hope to increase the amount of domestic capital flowing into the African private equity industry,” he said.
Adenia makes controlling investments in medium-sized companies across Africa with business models that allow for large operational and ESG improvements. It describes itself as “sector-agnostic”, investing in areas including financial services, agribusiness, renewable energy, consumer goods, telecommunications, healthcare, education, business services, light manufacturing, and specialty distribution.
The firm said its fifth fund was its first completely pan-African fund, which would be able to take advantage of the on-the-ground experience provided by its teams based in seven offices around the continent.
The Mauritius-registered firm, founded in 2002, said it had executed more than 30 platform investments and made 18 exits since then. The current fund follows on from predecessors including the €230m Adenia Capital IV and the €95.8m Adenia Capital III fund. It has raised $950 million across five funds and co-investments in all.
Adenia announced its first investment from the fifth fund in October 2023, taking a majority stake in Enfin, a solar financing solutions provider serving commercial and industrial clients in South Africa, against the backdrop of a long-running and escalating energy crisis in the country. The second investment, announced in March, was the acquisition of The Courier Guy, a last-mile delivery and express parcel service provider in South Africa. That investment was made alongside co-investors DEG, Proparco, and South Suez.
Also in March, the firm signed an agreement with Air Liquide, the Paris-headquartered industrial and medical gases giant, to buy 12 of its subsidiaries in west and central Africa and the Indian Ocean region. Adenia said these would form a new independent industrial gases group into which it would make additional investments of up to €30m. Air Liquide will continue to supply gases and provide technical assistance to the new company .
In October 2023, Adenia said it had joined 2X Global, an industry organisation that offers a growing range of tools to help direct more capital towards women’s economic empowerment.
