The MTN group has collectively bought 25% of the company from Crystal Ventures and the Government of Rwanda in a transaction that sees the government fully exit the company. Following the sale, MTN Group will hold 80% of its subsidiary, from its previous 55%. Crystal Ventures will retain a 20% interest. Renaissance Capital was the corporate finance advisor on the deal.

Crystal Ventures first backed the company in 1998, while the investor was still called Tri-Star Investments, buying an estimated 64%. At the time MTN Group took 26%, while the government of Rwanda, through the then parastatal Rwandatel, took the rest. Crystal Ventures has progressively transferred holdings to MTN Group, the most recent being a 15% sale in 2007.

“Following our partial divestment in 2007, this further partial divestment provides another opportunity for Crystal Ventures to redeploy capital in other sectors of the Rwandan economy,” said Crystal Ventures chairman Nshuti Manasseh. “As we remain a significant shareholder in MTN Rwanda, we look forward to working with MTN Group to ensure the continued growth of the company.”

MTN Rwanda was awarded a national Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) licence in April 1998, launching MTN’s expansion outside South Africa. Based in Kigali, the company has over 2.7 million subscribers and its network coverage extends to over 98% of the country’s population.

Crystal Ventures is a private investment group, owned by a number of indigenous Rwanda-based investors. The company invests in sectors that offer high yield expectations and add social value to communities.

Mballa-Ekobena was previously portfolio officer with the International Finance Corporation (IFC), covering private equity investments in Latin America.

Prior to the IFC,  she was at HSBC, where she was involved in the research of banks based in West and Southern Africa.

At least 12 deals were revealed to have been closed in the first five months, just seven short of 2010 full-year totals, according to Preqin data. Disclosed values touched $1.8 billion, about three times the $0.6billion reported in the whole of 2010. At least five other investments are set to be closed by June this year, according to Private Equity Africa sources.

“We have been very busy this year,” said a partner at an Africa-focused private equity investment company, in London. “We have already done more deals in 2011 than we did in the whole of last year,”

This year’s deal values have been bolstered by Nigeria’s financials services sector which saw ACA Capital back a $750million Union Bank deal. Vine Capital Partners also transacted a deal in the sector, leading a consortium of investors in the recapitalisation of Lagos-based Afribank.

The first half of the year also saw Adlevo Capital execute the first acquisition out of its specialist technology fund, backing a $110 InterSwitch deal alongside Helios. Also active in the financial technology segment was Sarona, which injected $0.3m in Lusaka-based mobile transactions company Mobile Transactions Zambia.

Citadel Capital fanned North-African deal making, by backing a $39.5million turnaround investment in Tenth of Ramadan for Pharmaceuticals and Diagnosing products (Rameda). The deal was structured through its subsidiary Sphinx Private Equity Management.  Elsewhere, Horizon Equity Partners exited its financial technology portfolio company, Peresys in a $56.4million trade sale, generating 14 times returns on cost.

This year sees aggregate deal making values return to levels last seen in 2008. Deal making in Africa’s private equity market reached its peak in 2007, when investors closed $7billion across 34 deals, according to Preqin data. Since then, both deal values and volumes have been on the decline – with last year recording the lowest number of deals since 2006.

African Eagle’s is seeking a total of $5million to prepare the company for listing on the Lusaka Stock Exchange and London’s AIM.  About $1million is set to be spent on capital expenditure and $3million on drilling around three copper prospects.

African Eagle has also budgeted $1million for IPO transaction costs, which includes the preparation of competent person’s reports (CPRs).

Canaccord and Ocean Equities are joint book runners on the deal. Renaissance Capital is working on African Eagles pre IPO financing activities in Zambia.

African Eagle’s Zambian assets include a 49% stake in Mkushi Copper Joint Ventures, a partnership with CGA Mining. African Eagle paid £2.3 million for the stake last year.

African Eagle’s other Zambian interests include Mokambo Project, Sasare Eagle Eye Copper-Gold Project, Lunga Project and has also identified copper targets in the Copperbelt city of Ndola.

The acquisition is understood to have been supported by a consortium of investors, including Aabar Investments, Idraj Capital development fund, RMA Wataniya and Wafa.

NorAH targets investments in financial services, insurance, real estate, industrial, logistics, healthcare, education, and agribusiness sectors. The investor focuses on companies based in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt.

Launched in 2006, the NorAH has a capital base of about KD 50 million.

Telecommunications is the most targeted industry in region with US$12.2billion, raking in 30% of the deals, up from $3.7billion in 2009.

The sector was lifted by Bharti Airtel’s $10.7billion.acquisition of Zain Africa from Zain Group.

Equity issuance in 2010 reached $8.3billion with initial public offerings making up 52% of the activity.

The materials sector was the most active in terms of equity issuance with 38% of the activity, followed by the energy and power sector, with financials coming in third.

South Africa was the most active issuer of equity with 59%, followed by Mauritius at 24%.

Morgan Stanley, Standard Chartered and UBS topped the advisory charts, in terms of total fees raked in.

Top 10 Sub-Saharan Africa 2010 M&A deals

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Heineken acquired the stakes from Sona Group through a competitive auction process. The acquirer is estimated to have paid almost EUR 600 million for the deal, based on an EBITDA multiple of 7 times.

The breweries will provide Heineken with an additional 3.7 million hectoliters of capacity, giving it a total capacity of about 16 million hectoliters.

Heineken estimates that the total size of the Nigerian beer market was 16.5 million hectoliters in 2009.

Nigeria has a population of about 150 million and with the beer market having an annual growth of 9% over the last 10 years, according to Heineken.

The investment will be used to bolster the company’s logistics chain and finance the development of a new pellet plant. Funding will also cover the extraction and export of woodchip biomass from Ghana Rubber Estates’ rubber tree plantation near Takoradi.

The project is expected to treble the company’s African exports in five years, with the capital set to be deployed over an eight-year period.

AfriRen is targeting to export 120,000 tonnes of woodchips per year from 2011 from its Ghana operations. The company is also finalising a feasibility study on a 2x30MW biomass-dedicated plant in Ivory Coast that will supply electricity to the grid around Abidjan.

AfriRen was established in 2010 to connect African biomass producers with the global marketplace.  The company’s vision is to develop renewable energy projects across Africa that will export biomas products primarily to Europe.

“We want to be the link with European end-users looking to secure long-term biomass supply contracts or firms seeking investment in renewable energy electricity generation in the African continent,” said Sonia Medina, AfriRen’s chief operating officer.

Throgmorton, a UK-based financial advisory company worked on the structuring of AfriRen. The advisor will also assist in implementing financial and administrative processes for AfriRen’s head office operations.

SARI will receive $1million in cash and 24.5 million  of Westward common shares.

Upon completion of the transaction, Sky Alliance Resources Guinee SA will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Westward and is to be  re-named West African Iron Ore Corp.

SARI has so far injected about $3million in SAR Guinee in the form of loans from its directors.

SAR Guinee holds two iron ore permits in the Republic of Guinea – the Forécariah permit covering an area of 1,400 km2, and the Kerouane permit, an area of approximately 500 km2.

Meditel is owned by CDG, which is backed by the Moroccan government and FinanceCom, a private holding company.

The deal expands the French telecom company’s expansion in the region, with the company already operating in 20 countries across Africa and the Middle East.

France Telecom recorded sales of €3.8bn in the region in 2009 and is looking to make €2bn in acquisitions.