CARLYLE, the US private equity firm, planned more investments in Nigeria as it spent $147 million (R1.6 billion) to take an 18 percent stake in Diamond Bank, the company said yesterday.
Carlyle expected to invest $50m to $200m in a second Nigerian company by the first quarter of next year, Genevieve Sangudi, the managing director for Carlyle’s Sub-Saharan Africa Fund, said in an interview from London.
“We have a strong pipeline of deals we’re evaluating. Nigeria is the largest economy in Africa and we see the growth potential for business,” said Sangudi.
The Washington-based firm was targeting banking, consumer goods and manufacturing industries in Nigeria over the next five years, Sangudi said. The country’s banks were returning to profitability after the global financial crisis while the economy was seeking to diversify from oil, she said.
Carlyle, the manager of investment alternatives to stocks and bonds, had invested almost $300m in sub-Saharan countries since 2011, Diamond Bank said. – Bloomberg