MCB Equity Fund, the private equity arm of MCB Group (SEM:MCBG), the largest banking group in Mauritius, is pleased to announce the acquisition of a minority stake in Africa Mobile Networks Ltd (“AMN”) as part of a consortium led by Metier, an independent African private equity manager.
The consortium, which includes CDC Group (the UK’s development finance institution and impact investor), Deutsche Investitions- und Entwicklungsgesellschaft mbH (Germany's development finance institution), Proparco (the private sector arm of the French Development Agency) and other leading institutions, has invested USD 36 million into AMN. As part of the transaction, the consortium is also acquiring USD 3.5 million of existing shares and in total will own a significant minority shareholding in AMN.
AMN builds and operates mobile network base stations in partnership with tier-1 licensed mobile network operators such as MTN, Orange and Vodafone to extend their rural coverage. AMN provides a full turnkey NaaS (“Network as a Service”) approach to enable mobile network operators in Sub-Saharan Africa to expand their coverage deep into rural areas with no capital expenditure or operating equipment risk borne by the mobile operators in these remote locations. AMN currently operates circa 2,000 mobile network base stations in rural towns and villages across 10 countries, serving around 7 million people who were previously unconnected and processing 1.2 billion phone calls per annum.
AMN is currently the 5th largest independent tower company operating in Africa, and is growing rapidly. Following a 2020 acquisition of communications technology vendor Range Networks, based in Silicon Valley, California, AMN has also become an original equipment manufacturer and recently deployed its own OpenRAN based equipment, which is capable of offering integrated 2G, 3G, 4G and 5G services from a single radio node.
The proceeds of the new growth equity will be used to fund AMN’s business from the current level to over 5,000 towers across more than 15 countries in Africa by the end of 2023.
About MCB Equity Fund
MCB Equity Fund is the private equity arm of MCB Group, the largest banking institution in Mauritius and sole shareholder of the fund. An evergreen fund with a committed capital of USD 100 million, MCB Equity Fund provides equity and quasi equity to established and fast growing businesses across Africa. The fund is managed by MCB Capital Partners, a wholly owned subsidiary of MCB Capital Markets.
