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Sub-Saharan Africa M&A Deals Jump 73% To $66.7B In 2015

Sub-Saharan Africa M&A Deals Jump 73% To $66.7B In 2015

The overall value of reported mergers and acquisitions (M&A) in sub-Saharan Africa jumped by a hefty 73 percent in 2015 compared to the previous year, a report by Thomson Reuters and Freeman Consulting has shown.

“The value of announced M&A transactions with any sub-Saharan African involvement reached $66.7 billion for 2015, 73 percent more than the value registered during 2014,” Thomson Reuters Africa Managing Director Sneha Shah said in the report.

The report looked at M&A activity that involved foreign companies buying African firms, transactions between African firms and African firms that bought companies.

Sub-Saharan African investment banking fees, meanwhile, increased 24 percent year-on-year to reach $476.4 million in 2015, while fees from completed M&A transactions nearly doubled to reach a totaled $174.5 million –the highest yearly value since 2011.

Rand Merchant Bank earned the most investment banking fees in SSA for 2015, a total of $48.5 million for a 10.2 per cent share of the total fee pool.  Rand Merchant Bank also topped the completed M&A fee rankings during 2015.

Standard Chartered ranked first place for syndicated loans fees and captured 11.1 per cent of the loans fee share.

South Africa’s overseas acquisitions accounted for 74 per cent of SSA outbound M&A activity, while acquisitions from Mauritius and Seychelles companies accounted for 19 per cent and 4 per cent, respectively.

Angola offered the largest bond issuance for the region, with its $1.5-billion sovereign debt in the form of Eurobonds.

The largest deal with SSA involvement in 2015 was the $22.6 billion reverse takeover transaction of Steinhoff International Holdings NV facilitated by an offer from Genesis International Holdings NV. Goldman Sachs topped the 2015 announced Any SSA Involvement M&A League Table with $15.9 billion and captured 23.8 per cent market share.