Emerging Capital Partners Acquires Controlling Interest in North African
Banking Group
Financial services sector continues to display strong growth across African
Continent
WASHINGTON, April 21 /PRNewswire/ -- Emerging Capital Partners (ECP), an
international private equity firm focused on investing across the African
continent, today announced a U.S. $15.9 million investment to acquire a
controlling interest in BACIM Bank, the seventh largest banking group in
Mauritania. ECP's investment will enable BACIM to transform into a top-tier
banking institution by strengthening management, consolidating resources, and
upgrading technology infrastructure and improving risk management.
"The Mauritanian banking sector is poised for significant growth over the
next five years due to solid macroeconomic fundamentals, an emerging consumer
market, and a growing corporate sector," said Vincent Le Guennou, executive
vice president of ECP. "We expect that the growing Mauritanian economy and
the increasing confidence of the international community will continue to
stimulate foreign direct investment in the country, resulting in substantial
gains for the banking sector."
Mauritania's financial system includes 11 retail and commercial banks,
most of which began as joint ventures between the state and foreign or
domestic investors, and were progressively privatized. As of December 2006,
the 11 banks had aggregate assets of $1.0 billion and managed approximately
125,000 bank accounts, making Mauritania's banking penetration rate a mere 4.2
percent. This is one of the lowest across all of Africa and particularly in
the surrounding Maghreb countries, where banking rates are around 50 percent.
However, bank deposits have recently registered an annual growth rate of 11
percent, and the arrival of new international players reflects the greater
attractiveness of the sector.
"We believe that ECP's capital and world-class business practices will
enable BACIM to record significant gains over the next few years," said Khalil
Chyat, director of ECP. "Our plans for the company include improving overall
management, infrastructure, training and risk policies, as well as expanding
the business into new market segments and setting up a program to better
recover non-performing loans. With these improvements in place, we expect
that BACIM will be able to better compete both within Mauritania and
throughout the region."
BACIM was founded in 2002 and is headquartered in the capital city of
Nouakchott. Its services include a full range of conventional and Islamic
banking products, as well as retail, treasury and corporate banking. In
addition, BACIM's Islamic products - such as Mourabaha or housing savings
products - are quite innovative for Mauritania.
The investment in BACIM was made through the $150 million ECP MENA Growth
Fund, which was established in 2007 to target various sectors throughout the
Middle East and North Africa such as food processing, consumer-related retail
and distribution, telecommunications, media, energy, manufacturing,
transportation, healthcare, petrochemicals, logistics, financial services and
tourism.
ECP currently holds stakes in five African financial services companies,
including Continental Reinsurance Plc, Nigeria's largest reinsurance company;
African Financial Holdings, a prominent banking group with eight subsidiaries
across Africa operating under the Bank of Africa brand name; and
Intercontinental Bank Plc, the second largest banking group in Nigeria. Last
year, the firm successfully exited its position in Ecobank Transnational
Incorporated, one of the largest regional banking groups in sub-Saharan
Africa, for a return of 3x the initial investment.
ABOUT ECP
Emerging Capital Partners (ECP) is the first private equity firm to raise
more than $1.2 billion to invest in companies across the African continent.
The ECP team has an eight-year track record of pan-African investing through
six successful funds. The firm's investment strategy is focused on delivering
consistently above-market returns to investors that are uncorrelated to the
U.S. and other global economies. For more information, please see
www.ecpinvestments.com.
SOURCE Emerging Capital Partners
Jennifer Gill, FD for ECP, +1-212-850-5691, jennifer.gill@fd.com
