20 Jan 2025 • Financial Services
AfricInvest : A testimony to the strong credentials of the Mauritius IFC
Aziz Mebarek is the co-founder and co-Managing Partner of AfricInvest (since 1994), a Pan-African group (operating in France as well), specializing in Private Equity, Venture Capital, private debt and asset management.
He acted as board member, and was part of the executive committees of several African and European companies and financial institutions.
From 1991, he was General Manager of two industrial companies that were part of the Italian public steel Conglomerate Ilva (IRI group) after having held other various positions within these companies.
Aziz Mebarek is the Co-founder and has been an active member of several non profit associations operating in the economic, social, educational and entrepreneurial fields, including AVCA (the Pan- African PE/VC Association), the Tunisian Economic Analysis Council and the Association of Tunisian graduates from the “French Grandes Ecoles”.
Aziz holds and engineering degree from the French engineering school “Ecole des Ponts ParisTech”.
Firstly, let’s talk about you. Please tell our readers more about your background and what motivated your choice of career path?
I am an engineer by profession, graduated in France. I kicked off my career in one of the most prominent global conglomerates active in the steel manufacturing business and I quickly climbed up the ladder to take a managerial role. Besides my role as Managing Director of one of the main affiliates of this group, I was involved in several acquisitions, growth strategies and turnaround plans. This experience has convinced me about the role an institutional investor can play in funding and bringing value addition to private companies. I saw that the Private Equity activity can be an opportunity to support the private sector in our countries and that launching this activity will also fulfil my dream of becoming an entrepreneur. Therefore, in my early thirties, together with my friends and partners we started the first private equity management company in our region. Each one of us brought different expertise and experience (managerial, financial, technical, transactional and auditing). . We were thrilled by this new adventure which combines our entrepreneurship spirit while at the same time creating value with purpose and impact with the ultimate goal of improving lives in Africa.
Being one of the pioneers on the continent in this industry, can you share the challenges encountered and how you went about them?
Like all entrepreneurs the start is never easy. We have faced difficulties at all levels namely legal and tax framework challenges, fund raising was a nightmare, lack of trained private equity resources, inexistent deal flow of promising companies interested by private equity funding to avoid the dilution of the sponsors. Through our resilience, we were able to convince institutional investors and development finance institutions to join us in our initiative to support Africa businesses, catalyze inclusive growth through quality job creation, improved livelihoods, environmental stewardship, thereby generating sustainable returns for investors society.
Our investors and our portfolio companies were our best ambassadors and helped us to explain to family owned businesses how private equity, as an alternative asset class can contribute to their growth strategies and reinforcing their governance structure as well.
“Africa is the last investment frontier” . How do we craft a narrative that will make Africa more appealing and investment friendly to investors?
As we all know, Africa is made up of 54 independent countries, each with its own unique culture, history, and geography. Thus, the risk/opportunity mix is not the same in all the regions. Nevertheless, your question is still valid for all parts of the continent and even beyond. In Africa, we all need to acknowledge the fact that the risk is higher than average. Having local offices in the various regions such as North Africa, West Africa and East Africa with local skilled professionals on the ground who have a deep knowledge of the country/sectors in which the money is deployed is one way to mitigate the risk.
Now more than ever, we are witnessing investors striving for a measurable impact, in addition to return. This offers a huge opportunity to the continent and the impact of investment in Africa per dollar deployed is much higher than average. Lastly, I would like also to highlight the fact that based on the current population of over 1.5 billion in Africa and the projected 2.5 billion by 2050, the local savings will obviously evolve significantly in the coming years which should allow to attract much more local money to Private Equity and Venture Capital asset class. We all have the mission to make the continent catch up on different sectors among other education, health, infrastructure, food security, manufacturing and FMCG, financial services, fintech, energy, Hospitality, retail and logistics.
In order to sustain recent rapid economic growth and usher in rapid industrialization, what do you think should be the priorities for policymakers in developing African countries?
I think that policymakers should pay additional attention to ease of doing business in the different African countries by strengthening investment ecosystems, including a stable and predictable tax environment, an improved infrastructure and simplified administrative procedures through the use of digitalisation. Moreover stabilizing the macro indicators including inflation, budget and external trade deficit, and improving the countries rating to bring down the interest rates is a must. Last but not least, the quality of education including vocational training whilst ensuring that the teachers adopt a growth mindset by constantly upgrading their skills and standards is of paramount important. Our youth is our hope and the pillar of the future of our countries.
What compelling arguments can you make for international investors choosing to structure through the Mauritius IFC?
To date, AfricInvest has raised over $2bn Asset Under Management (AUM) across 22 funds, mostly based out of Mauritius. , deploying six distinct strategies in Africa with dedicated teams : 1/Mid/Large Cap; 2/Small Cap; 3/Financial inclusion and Fintech; 4/VC, 5/Health inclusion and 6/Private Debt. Moreover we have developed two promising activities outside Africa: (i) A PE activity in France under the AMF supervision targeting selected French companies that combine their strong presence in France with an African growth strategy and (ii) a solid Asset management activity in Dubai (DFSA regulated) targeting listed companies in the Middle East
In 2007, we structured our first fund in Mauritius and since then we have proactively promoted the Mauritius IFC (MIFC) as a jurisdiction of choice to the global business community. Through our long-standing, strong and close relationships with leading Development Financial Institutions (DFIs)s, we have encouraged them to structure their investments via the MIFC and they have proved their trust and confidence in the jurisdiction through their recurrent investments into our funds domiciled in Mauritius.
Over the years, Mauritius has successful developed a reputable international financial services sector, contributing around 13% to the national GDP. The Mauritius IFC (MIFC) has a proven track record in facilitating cross-border investments into Africa, leveraging its comprehensive suite of products and services. Its robust legal and regulatory framework, sophisticated banking system, highly skilled, bilingual finance and legal professionals, ease and cost of doing business and political stability all contribute to this success.
To retain its competitive edge, all the actors of the ecosystem should work collaboratively to offer top- notch products and a seamless service to the global investors. In addition, it is essential for the MIFC to maintain open dialogue with African governments, showcasing how Mauritius can serve as a conduit for foreign investments in their respective countries. It is also important to remind international investors of Mauritius’s expertise in directing investments to developing African economies. The MIFC should position itself as a specialist regional IFC-focused on Africa.
I would like to commend the initiative of Mauritius in developing an Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) framework. In addition, I hope that the market authorities will make progress in the passporting of Mauritius players to allow them raising funds in Europe and other places.
Finally, being a resident in your beautiful country for over 5 years now, I am an ambassador of the island as a nice destination to work and live.
What are the future plans of AfricInvest when it comes to Mauritius?
We shall reinforce our presence in Mauritius and we shall structure our investment through the MIFC through the incorporation of our funds, GPS, SPVs and holding of portfolio companies. We are therefore constantly increasing our team size in Mauritius. Going forward, we would like to promote potential local investments enabling Off Shore structures to play an On shore role to further contribute to the development of the local economy, create substance and integration with the African continent. We have also the appetite to support start ups with significant innovation content. I am convinced that many businesses in Mauritius have the vision, the management and the balance sheet which allows such growth. Along with my partners and colleagues, we shall do our best to contribute to this trend.
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