March 21 2024

Funds set up by the African Export-Import Bank (Afrexim) have more than $450 million to invest in financial services, creative industries, oil refineries and healthcare, officials said on Wednesday.

The Fund For Export Development in Africa (FEDA) has raised $770 million for four funds, Marlene Ngoyi, FEDA’s CEO, said in an interview at the opening of its Kigali office. It has already invested about $300 million, Afrexim’s President Benedict Oramah also told Reuters.

FEDA, unveiled by multilateral trade finance bank Afrexim in 2016 and which makes equity, debt and credit investments, as well as “greenfield” investments in new businesses, had raised $670 million by 2022. It is targeting raising $1.3 billion in total, according to its website.

“Across all of our fund strategies we’re probably going to be making I would say 10 to 15 investments (this year),” Ngoyi said. “We have the private credit fund that we manage. We expect to see transactions – we had four last year, we expect more this year.”

She declined to disclose the size of the planned investments, but said manufacturing and logistics were other sectors of interest.

FEDA’s investments so far include $85 million in industrial zone developer ARISE IIP in 2022, as well as taking a minority stake in pan-African technology company Liquid Intelligent Technologies in 2021 and putting an undisclosed amount last year into the 60,000 barrel-per-day Cabinda Oil Refinery in Angola.

“You are not going to see FEDA investing in minerals and metals. We have to go beyond that. But you will see FEDA investing in refineries as it has done with Cabinda refinery in Angola,” said Oramah, Afrexim’s head.
REUTERS