African PE firm ADC backs Zimbabwean bank in $6m deal

With this transaction, ADC will hold a 45 per cent stake in Premier. KMQ Enterprises, a Mauritius domiciled company, will own a further nine per cent shareholding. Of the remaining shares, 28 per cent is held by a local consortium, and the balance of 18 per cent is held by other local investors and an employee share trust.

This investment is aligned with ADC’s focus on the financial services sector in Africa. The private equity firm has already invested in Banco Nacional de Guinea Ecuatorial (BANGE), a commercial bank in Equatorial Guinea; SIMTEL, a payment and mobile-banking provider in Rwanda and IVERI, a banking-application specialised software company in South Africa.

ADC CEO Dirk Harbecke said, “ADC’s investment demonstrates our confidence in our local partners, the future of Premier and the prospects offered by the Zimbabwe economy in general. We would not have made this investment if we did not believe in the opportunity that exists to build Premier into a significant player within the growing local market.”

ADC is a pan-African private equity firm investing in the financial services sector, and which was founded and controlled by the Altira Group, a German asset manager with $1bn under management.  

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