ACI and Barak ink collaboration deal
Africa Capital Digest’s Editor & Publisher, Allan Cunningham, provides his monthly summary of the deals and activity that’s helping to drive fundraising across the continent.
African Capital Investments and Barak Fund Management have agreed to a strategic collaboration with one another in order to offer their respective clients a wider suite of services. Both firms, who will co-locate in their respective offices in London and Johannesburg, will look to provide their offering in combination to benefit client projects. By tapping Barak’s lending expertise and African Capital Investment’s equity expertise, the firms’ joint offering will now range from trade finance and lending solutions to corporate advisory, structuring and M&A services.
“Barak’s track record speaks volumes and their reputation in the market grows every day,” Rob Hersov, the founder of African Capital Investments was quoted as saying in the statement announcing the partnership. “They offer a creative approach to lending and provide African entrepreneurs with a viable and fast moving alternative to commercial bank debt.”
The move seems to have been prompted by each firm’s market observations. Starting off as a provider of short-term trade finance, Barak has seen the opportunity to provide longer-term asset-backed lending to fast growing local companies whose risk profile and capital requirements are not being met by Africa’s commercial banks. Meanwhile African Capital Investments has seen and continues to see mandates that would benefit from having a fixed income component in their deal structures.
Africa Capital Investments, a sub-Saharan focused merchant bank which was founded by Rob Hersov in 2013, is led by Gianpaolo Pera. Barak Fund Management, which was founded by Jean Craven and Prieur Du Plessis in 2009, manages six funds with in excess of $650 million in assets under management.
