Vantage Capital, Africa’s leading mezzanine funder, has provided R77m ($7.06m) of funding for the acquisition of preferred equity facilities in a Pembani-owned SPV that holds 30% of the ordinary equity and PIK notes in AfriSam.

AfriSam is the largest black-controlled South African building and construction materials company.
It is also the second largest supplier of cement in both South Africa and Tanzania as well as the largest supplier of aggregates in South Africa.

Pembani Group is a BEE investment holding company that is majority owned and controlled by Phuthuma Nhleko, the former group CEO of MTN.

The Group focuses on infrastructure, energy and mineral resources investments in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Its AfriSam acquisition was originally funded by a consortium of lenders that included Standard Bank, who has now sold down a portion of its exposure to Vantage in the current transaction.

Luc Albinski, Managing Partner of Vantage, said: “Vantage is proud to provide funding support to yet another black-owned business. Our investment in AfriSam comes alongside BEE funding support provided to at least five other Fund II portfolio companies that include TrenStar (logistics), Kgoro Central Project and Pretoria Towers (property sector), Reatile Timrite (mining services) and Austell Laboratories (pharmaceuticals) to facilitate their respective acquisitions and expansion projects.”

The funding was provided via Vantage’s Fund II, which has a pan-African investment focus (with a 35% allocation to opportunities outside South Africa) and can make investments up to R300m ($30m) in a single transaction.
AfriSam is the tenth mezzanine transaction in Vantage’s Fund II, of which more than 80% of available funds have been invested.

Vantage has commenced the raising of its third mezzanine fund which is targeted to close shortly at R2.5bn.