BTG Pactual launches $ 1bn Africa buyout fund

Brazilian billionaire André Esteves has launched the biggest private equity fund for Africa, promising to raise at least $1billion for investments in areas such as energy and infrastructure.

With the move, the 43-year old billionaire Esteves signals the ambition of his investment banking firm BTG Pactual to fight for control of the emerging markets, which are scoring fast-clipped growth, at a time when European economies are slugging with negative growth rates and record-high employment, in particular with their youth. Spain’s economy has ‘double-dipped’ into recession, for the second time in three years. In April, the UK economy fell back into recession––a performance of the economy in the past four years that has been the worst in peacetime for at least a century.

Brazil has become the sixth-biggest economy in the world, overtaking the UK, with a worth $2.5trillion. China officially overtook Japan as the world’s second-biggest economy in 2011. Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa form the bloc of emerging BRICS nations.
It’s going to be the biggest fund that Brazil has raised for investments outside the country, and it will also be the biggest private fund exclusively focused on Africa,’ Mr Esteves told delegates at a seminar on Brazil-Africa trade and investments in Rio de Janeiro.

 
The initial value of the fund will be $1 billion, making this the largest existing Africa-focused investment fund, Esteves announced. It tops Helios, a $900m pan-African private equity investment vehicle. The fund will also be open to participation by non-Brazilians, said Esteves.
Esteves said the decision marks the deepening ties between Africa and Brazil, and BTG Pactual’s initiative to harness some of the ‘enormous affinity that Brazil has with Africa.