Verdant Capital bags Independent Advisory Firm of the Year at 2020 Africa Global Funds Awards

Africa Global Funds, the leading industry journal covering private equity and other asset classes across Africa, awarded this accolade to Verdant Capital in recognition of the firm’s major transaction volumes in 2020 across M&A and private credit and across the Continent. Geographically, Verdant Capital completed transactions in South Africa, Uganda, Kenya, Ghana, Namibia with buyers and investors from the US, Switzerland, Germany, the UK, Japan, the Netherlands, Belgium, the Baltics, South Africa, and Nigeria.

Verdant Capital completed transactions in most major sectors of the economy including, financial services, financial technology or “fintech”, telecoms and agro-business. 

In the fintech sector, Verdant Capital completed three major transactions in 2020 with the closing of the final leg of a USD 13 million debt and equity raise for the South African innovative car subscription business, Planet42. The capital raise follows transactions completed by Verdant Capital for innovative productive lease-financing business in East Africa, Tugende and technology-driven SME-lender in South Africa, Retail Capital. Verdant Capital raised a total of USD 40 million in the sector in 2020, evidencing strong support for the sector in Africa from a variety of investors types, and from investors from around the World.

In total in Africa, in the fintech sector, in the first 11 months of 2020 there was total of USD 501 million of transactions across M&A and capital. This represents almost exponential growth over the last five years, as tech businesses have disrupted the African financial services sector leapfrogging outdated business practices and often moribund physical infrastructure. Verdant Capital, based on its own pipeline, expects sector deal volumes in 2021 to again outstrip the prior year.