Amethis Finance and Retail Holding (the parent company of Label’Vie Group) have jointly invested in CDCI, a food distribution company in Côte d’Ivoire.

Khady Kone-Dicoh, Investment Director at Amethis, said: “The Group CDCI is ideally poised to benefit from the Ivorian economic recovery and the rise of a middle class with an increasing purchasing power in a market still characterized by a low penetration rate of the modern distribution."

CDCI (Compagnie de Distribution de Côte d’Ivoire) was acquired from Unilever in 2002 by Yasser Ezzedine, an Ivorian and Lebanese entrepreneur, pioneer of the Ivorian food distribution sector.

The company operates under four brands: CDCI Gros, CDCI Demi-gros, King Cash and the Leader Price franchise.

Over the past decade, Ezzedine allowed the company to achieve a large national coverage based on a strategy of proximity centered on the low to middle income customers.

The company has significantly expanded its network from 12 shops in 2002 to 127 shops in 2014 with a presence in Abidjan and the interior of Côte d’Ivoire.

In this transaction, Amethis successfully managed to build a partnership between CDCI and Label’Vie.

Laurent Demey, co-founder and Managing Partner of Amethis, said: “Amethis is proud to support this long-term partnership between two major actors of the distribution sector in Africa”.

"Label’Vie and Amethis will together bring a strategic and operational expertise to CDCI, support the company’s development in Côte d’Ivoire and the sub-region and actively participate to the company’s governance, with the ambition for the company to become an African leader in the distribution sector," he said.