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Carlyle Builds A $698 Million Fund For Investment In Sub-Saharan Africa

Carlyle Builds A $698 Million Fund For Investment In Sub-Saharan Africa

Written by Devin Banerjee | From Bloomberg

Carlyle Group, the world’s second-largest manager of alternative assets such as private equity and real estate, raised $698 million for its first fund targeting investments in sub-Saharan Africa.

The final amount was 40 percent above the $500 million targeted by Washington-based Carlyle for the strategy, according to Catherine Armstrong, a spokeswoman. The firm started a team based in Johannesburg and Lagos, Nigeria, in 2011, headed by Marlon Chigwende and Daniel Jordaan. Jordaan stepped back from his role earlier this year and became a senior adviser.

Private-equity firms invested $1.6 billion in sub-Saharan Africa last year, a five-year high and an increase from $1.1 billion in 2012, data from the Emerging Markets Private Equity Association show. Carlyle’s regional focus will be on businesses in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Tanzania, Ghana, Mozambique, Botswana, Zambia and Uganda, according to the firm’s website.

“If China is a developed market almost on one end of the spectrum, Africa is nearly a frontier market at the other end,” Bill Conway, Carlyle’s co-founder and chief investment officer, said on an August conference call with investors. “We’ve been able to find some big companies in Africa to make investments in and we’ve been pretty happy with them, at least so far.”

Read more at Bloomberg