First investment by African Rivers Fund (ARF)
Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, 9 May 2016
Today, XSML, the fund manager active in Central Africa, announced the first
investment of its African Rivers Fund (ARF) in Institut Aurora. Institut Aurora offers
nursery, primary and secondary education to the population of Kinshasa. The school
offers both a French Lycee curriculum as well as an English IB and a Montessori
program.
In the last decades, education has been heavily affected by various crises sustained
by the DRC. For years there has been insufficient public sector investment in
education, leading to a lack of supply by existing schools. Despite the increasing supply
via public and private institutions, who offer national and international programs, there
continues to be a large deficit in affordable, quality education. Focusing on lower
middle and middle class households Institut Aurora offers an affordable internationally
recognized education program for both the French and English speaking population of
Kinshasa.
The managing director of Aurora, Mrs. Jayshree Aurora, states: “Our goal is to offer
high quality French and English primary and secondary education at affordable rates
to enable our students to get trained according to the highest international IB
education standards as well as the French Lycee system. This helps them to be well
prepared for an academic or professional life afterwards. As capacity of the current
school facility is limited, we need to add additional class rooms and facilities as quickly
as possible to cater for the demand from the students”.
Barthout van Slingelandt, Managing Partner at XSML says: “The success of Aurora
demonstrates the strong demand for quality primary and secondary education in
Congo DRC. While we invested with our first fund in the school when it just started,
with our second fund we are able to finance the next step of its growth tripling capacity
of the school from 500 to 1,500 students. The education sector in Congo has
tremendous growth potential and long term capital is scarce. By providing this long
term capital we enable the school to grow in its own purpose built premises - a good
learning environment for Aurora’s students.”
ARF targets growing, well-managed small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the
Central and East-African region covering Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Uganda
and Republic of Congo as well as Burundi and Central African Republic (CAR). The
fund, which had its first close at USD 50 million in Q1, 2016, is named after the two
most powerful rivers in Africa, the Congo and Nile Rivers, which embody the potential
of the Central African region. ARF follows the successful investment strategy of its
predecessor, the Central Africa SME Fund (CASF), by providing debt, equity and
mezzanine finance to fast-growing companies in the Central African region. All three
current investors in CASF, IFC (a member of the World Bank Group), FMO (the Dutch
development bank) and Lundin Foundation (Canadian foundation), are joined by BIO
(Belgium Investment Company for Developing Countries), CDC Group (the UK
development finance institution), Dutch Good Growth Fund (DGGF) and FISEA (AFD
Group) - an expansion of the investor base of the African Rivers Fund, which
demonstrates their commitment and support for investing in these frontier markets.
Through CASF, XSML has made 32 investments in SMEs across 10 sectors in Central
Africa. CASF has been fully invested and has exited two investments. XSML believes
that sustainable economic development in fast growing frontier markets as the DRC
can be achieved by encouraging local entrepreneurship. Currently, many opportunities
in these countries remain unexploited due to the lack of risk capital and support. By
stimulating entrepreneurial endeavors, jobs and income are created. The African
Rivers Fund continues CASF’s strategy with investments in between USD 200,000 and
USD 5 million.
About Aurora ASBL
Aurora ASBL is a school established in 2012 offering French, English IB and Montessori
education at nursery, primary and secondary level. The school has been founded by
Mrs. Jayshree Aurora, who has longstanding experience in school administration in
Kinshasa, with a degree in Accounting, Finance and Administration from the Universite
Libre de Bruxelles. Aurora distinguishes itself by offering high quality education at
international standards at attractive prices in Kinshasa.
About XSML
XSML is an independent private equity fund manager with a focus on frontier markets
in Africa. While building and managing funds for these markets, XSML, eXtra Small
Medium Large, aims to help grow small businesses into medium and large enterprises.
The team has an extensive background in emerging and frontier markets in the areas
of asset management, corporate and development banking and corporate
restructuring as well as in-depth knowledge of local markets. Our experience has
shown that demand for finance from small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs)
remains largely untapped despite increased interest in frontier markets from
international investors. XSML bridges this gap between international investors and
SMEs in these markets. With the Central Africa SME Fund and the African Rivers Fund,
XSML now has USD 65 million under management. XSML has a dedicated team of over
12 investment- and operating professionals across offices in Kinshasa (DRC), Bangui
(CAR) and a soon to be opened office in Kampala (Uganda).
For further information, please contact:
[email protected]
T: +31 (0) 85 273 6032
www.xsmlcapital.com