Congratulations to all the winners and participants of the Private Equity Africa Awards 2017, who attended a glittering night of excellence in finance supporting Africa’s growth. The awards dinner was at the Savoy in London, and the final award-winners were selected by an independent panel of judges (see below) and recommendations from a nomination team at the London Business School Institute of Private Equity. For full details and more photos see Private Equity Africa website and the detailed pages on the awards and speakers.
Winners of 2017 awards were:
- Limited Partner (LP) Award: CDC
- Outstanding Leadership Award: Ziad Oueslati, co-founding Partner at AfricInvest. Award presented by Runa Alam, Chief Executive Officer at DPI. This was awarded based on voting by leading industry investors.
- Venture Philanthropy Africa Award: Helios Investment Partners
House Awards – House of the Year:
- Sub-Saharan Africa House of the Year: Development Partners International (DPI)
- SME Investor of the Year: AfricInvest
- Credit Investor of the Year: Investec Asset Management
Special Recognition: Houses
- Regional Investor – North Africa: Mediterrania Capital Partners
Deal Awards
- Exit of the Year: Actis for Emerging Markets Payments
- Large Cap Deal of the Year: Helios for Oando Gas & Power
- Mid Cap Deal of the Year: 8 Miles for Beloxxi
- Small Cap Deal of the Year: Apis Partners for Direct Pay Online
- Credit Deal of the Year: Investec Asset Management with IHS Nigeria
Special Recognition: Deals
- Infrastructure Exit: African Infrastructure Investment Managers (AIIM) for N3 Toll, Trans Africa and Bakwena Platinum Corridor
Portfolio Awards – Portfolio Company of the Year
- Development Impact: Emerging Capital Partners (ECP) for Oragroup
- Social Impact: Development Partners International (DPI) for HomeChoice
- Innovation: Quona Capital for Zoona
- Improvement: Quona Capital for Zoona
Advisor Awards – Advisor of the Year
- Overall Legal Advisor of the Year (Deals & Funds): Clifford Chance
- Funds Legal Advisor: Webber Wentzel
- Deals Legal Advisor: Clifford Chance
- Local Advisor of the year – Legal: Bowmans
- Local Advisor of the year – Financial: Pangaea Securities
- Single Deal Advisor – Legal: Bowmans for Tsebo
- Single Deal Advisor – Financial: KPMG for Tsebo
- Single Deal Advisor – Infrastructure: Latham & Watkins for Azura Power
- Single Deal Advisor – Frontier: Grant Thornton for Microcred
- Fund Administrator of the Year: Abax Services
Special Recognitions: Advisors
- Global Financial Advisor: KPMG
- Regional Advisor – North Africa: Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer
- Exceptional Single Deal Advisor: Aluko & Oyebode.
The awards are an occasion for Africa’s fast-growing private equity industry, focused mostly onto growth equity, to celebrate its achievements and highlight excellence. As a judge, I have been very impressed with the detail, scale and outcomes of some of the deals, which are transformative for many African economies and reflect many months of hard work, inspiration and a wide range of skills including legal, financial and negotiation.
This year’s judges are: Vivina Berla (Sarona), Daniel Schoneveld (Hamilton Lane), Jeremy Cleaver (CDC), John Kristensen (Swedfund), Obinna Isiadinso (IFC), Mark Florman (Listed Private Equity), Dushy Sivanithy (Rede Partners), Gozie Chigbue (CDC), Isaac Gross (Capria), Erika van der Merwe (Southern African Venture Capital Association), Alex Wolf (HarbourVest), Hervé Schricke (Association Française des Investisseurs pour la Croissance – AFIC), Jean-Luc Koffi Vovor (Kusuntu Partner), Matthew Craig-Greene (Family Office Data Alliance), Sunaina Sinha (Cebile Capital), Tom Minney (African Growth Partners), Daniel Broby (University of Strathclyde), Mark Flanagan (Aon Hewitt), Charles Rose (Hainsford Renewable Energy), Gail Mwamba (Private Equity Africa).