Africa offers a strong growth equity opportunity

Africa is the world’s second largest continent, made up of 54 countries which have a wide variety of cultures, religions, historical connections, political systems and commercial links.  At 300 million square km, Africa is larger than China, the United States, Western Europe, India, Argentina and the UK combined.

ARKANA Partners' main focus is on Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). These regions make up a catchment area of 840 million people and offer strong growth equity potential.

Despite recent strong growth, Africa remains small economically with the key pillars of development still in the early stages. There are a variety of factors that hold companies back including lack of infrastructure, managerial talent and weak ESG practices. But there are local champions who have mastered their business environment, and can benefit from access to capital and more international experience.

Africa continues to be a market where private equity for growth dominates, accounting for almost 70% of all investment types in both number of deals and value.

The average size of growth investments is $15m.

Fertility remains high at 5.0 children per woman vs. 1.9 in the US, 1.7 in East Asia and 1.6 in Europe

SSA's population is forecast to double to 2 billion in the next 40 years.

More than 50% of that population is below the age of 19 years old vs 40% in Europe.

Africa's share of global urban population continues to rise at a faster pace than other regions.

The SSA showed resilience during the financial crisis.

Historical & Projected Growth Rates (2000-2018, %) - Source: International Monetary Fund.