All of our projects are geared towards ultimately providing attractive financial returns to our investors and are timed for optimal “exits” within 4-6 years for business ventures.
We believe that not only is venture capital and private equity compatible with economic and social development of the regions we work in, but that is a key driver in ensuring sustainable growth and long-term economic prosperity of our target countries and communities, just as the PE and VC industry was instrumental in developing the western economies over the latest several decades. Every project that we engage in seeks to be socially beneficial, yet strongly anchored on a for-profit nature and aimed at generating high investment returns.
By ensuring that our investors and local communities are regarded as the key “winners” in every project, we are promoting a sustainable development model of a vitreous cycle of continued economic development aided by internal and external capital inflows to new ventures, corporate turnarounds, and growth of existing commercial enterprises.
We work for our investors and see ourselves as not only stewards of their capital, but as having a duty to maximize the upside scenario for all of our stakeholders. Our operational model is closely aligned to that principle, with most of our own incentives driven by carried interest (a portion of gains on successfully “exited” projects) rather than management fees. Having shared interest as our investors in selecting deals that generate maximum investment returns, while featuring acceptable levels of risk and net positive economic and social benefits, allows us to engage in management decisions that maximize the net value creation in the projects that we engage in.
Growing Successful Businesses
Upon establishing or acquiring a new business, value creation and social impact are our utmost priorities around which we plan both the operations and the growth strategy of our enterprises. Our ultimate goal is to generate investment returns upon an eventual exit of each business. We seek to create value in these enterprises via the following key methods and practices:
Establishing profitable operations and/or turning around existing operations to generate positive earnings
Opening up new markets and expanding existing ones
Competing effectively against local and import alternatives; generating exports that are competitive at the regional and global level
Growing our enterprises as a key part of their investment and development strategy
Creating “Regional Champions”
In establishing and running our business ventures, we seek to create “regional champions” – companies that are able to expand beyond a single operating site and ultimately across natural borders in West Africa to capture market share in their industries, or in some cases, create entire new industrial categories in the region.
Our goal is for our investments to grow from small enterprises into the medium and large scale companies. During the course of our investments we seek to capture the generated value and return the gains to our investors via four key exit vehicles:
Sales of businesses (or stakes in the business) to strategic and industry buyers looking to expand in or into the West African market, create operating synergies, or integrate their supply chain
Sales of businesses to other financial buyers, namely other private equity funds, looking to grow and develop them further
Management buy-ins, an increasingly-common exit mechanism for private equity in the region
Public listing of businesses at regional stock exchanges