Adiwale Partners reaches final close of its first fund, raising €60M

Investments

Monday, 04 October 2021 19:14

Adiwale Partners reaches final close of its first fund, raising €60M

(Togo First) - Adiwale Partners, the private equity firm founded by Jean-Marc Savi and Visseho Gnassounou (both Togolese), made a final close of its first fund, Adiwale Fund I. The news was reported by Agence Ecofin.

The fund manager which is committed to financing SMEs in Francophone West Africa raised €60 million ($69.6 million), less than the €75 million it expected. According to the firm, its target was missed because of “a very difficult fundraising environment, a situation exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic.”

Regardless, Adiwale still has the ambition to build a portfolio of growing, attractive assets, in West Africa’s French-speaking countries.

Initially, Adiwale Fund I will focus on four countries - Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal, Mali, and Burkina Faso- where it will invest between €3 million and €8 million per transaction, in well-established SMEs that can grow rapidly. The Fund will primarily finance businesses that operate in the consumer services, business services, and industrial sectors.

Last June, it acquired stakes in an Ivorian maintenance climatization technique firm, Agence Ecofin indicated.

For its final close, Adiwale Fund I welcomed as the last investor the International Finance Corporation, the private-sector investment arm of the World Bank. Before that, however, the Fund had attracted several African and international financing institutions, including the African Development Bank (AfDB).

Ayi Renaud Dossavi

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