Harvesting growth: How do PE Investors Create Value?

This joint research piece, looking at value creation through exit deals across Africa, provides an answer to the commonly asked question “are there exits in Africa?” The continent’s stock markets, other than the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, are still very small and relatively illiquid, and the intermediary networks remain far from complete across the region. As a result, a widely held perception is that exits are hard to achieve and that therefore they are few in number. However, our analysis points to a higher level of exit activity than might be expected.

Key findings:

  • 91% of deals in our sample were proprietary

  • Africa’s PE firms tend to take minority stakes in the businesses they back (80% in our sample)