Adiwale Partners holds the first closing of Adiwale Fund I at €50 million

Mauritius/Abidjan, October 23, 2019 – Adiwale Partners, the private equity firm focusing on growth capital investments for SMEs in French-speaking West Africa, has announced the first closing of its first fund, Adiwale Fund I L.P. at €50 million. The fund has attracted investors from Africa, Europe and North America. Investors include development finance as well as commercial investors.

Adiwale Fund I will provide growth capital to SMEs in Francophone West Africa, Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso as well as Togo, Benin and Guinea. The fund will be acquiring minority positions in 10 to 12 investments, with tickets of €3-8 million per transaction. Key investment themes for the fund are: rising incomes and changing consumer behaviours, expansion of the local supply chain (increased sophistication of local economies), import substitution and company’s backward integration. The fund will as a consequence invest in three key sectors: Consumer-related, including health and education; Business Services (transport & logistics, IT, construction-related services, etc) and Manufacturing (chemicals, pharma, …)

Jean-Marc Savi de Tové, Managing Partner at Adiwale Partners, said: “We are very pleased with this first closing which attracted leading institutions that have a keen interest in the development of Africa. The closing demonstrates our expertise and knowledge of the region and it shows the confidence that our institutional investors have in our activities. We are hopeful to reach our target size of €75 million within a year”.
He added: “Francophone West Africa attracts less than 7% of private equity investments, where it represents 19% of the GDP of the West Africa region. Locally groomed private equity firms like Adiwale Partners could help close the gap. Today, we have a strong pipeline of attractive projects which our team is already executing on.”

Vissého Gnassounou, Managing Partner at Adiwale Partners, also added: “Francophone West Africa’s pool of entrepreneurs is constantly growing and evolving, and has dramatically changed over the past two decades. The region remains the second fastest growing region in the world, and should continue to post strong growth, as our currency remains stable and provides visibility, countries embark on strong reforms, and borders become more fluid for businesses and for people.”

About Adiwale Partners

Adiwale Partners (www.adiwale.com) is a private equity firm focusing on growth investments in SMEs and mid-cap companies in Francophone West Africa.
Based in Mauritius and Abidjan, Adiwale Partners has developed a hands-on approach to implementing its investment strategy by leading governance and key internal value creation initiatives. On top of capital, governance improvements and strategic planning, we provide operational support through the lending of expertise, mostly functional, to our portfolio companies.

Adiwale Partners is a regulated financial investment manager licensed by the Financial Services Commission (FSC) in Mauritius.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION:

info@adiwale.com
www.adiwale.com