South African Convergence Partners, which is owned by ICT industry veteran Andile Ngcaba, has spent R75 million ($5 million) to acquire an additional stake in fast-growing FinTech Player Channel VAS.
Convergence Partners exercised preferential and exclusive rights to acquire the stake as a result of an intra-consortium rebalancing of the holdings of another member of the Ethos consortium through which Convergence Partners is partially invested.
Last week private equity firm Ethos announced that it has sold its 1.4% stake in FinTech player Channel VAS.
The company said it has has sold a 1.4% stake in Channel VAS at a consideration of $5 million (R76.6 million).
Ethos added that the sale consideration has valued Ethos Capital’s stake in Channel VAS at $36.7 million (R750 million) (a 16% premium to the valuation as at 30 June 2020). For more read: Ethos Private Equity Sells 1.4% Stake In FinTech Player Channel VAS for R77 Million
Brandon Doyle, CEO of Convergence Partners, said the company was very pleased to have been able to top up its investment in Channel VAS.
“This is a business we feel particularly excited about as it ticks a number of boxes for us as an investor; the success of the business demonstrates the capacity of digital data and AI technologies to deliver meaningful and robust solutions to meet the real financial needs of underserved customers in the markets it serves.
“This substantial development impact comes coupled with rapid, profitable growth and dominant scale in the business’ chosen solutions, a focused, top quality management team, substantial future scale and growth prospects, solid and proven execution capabilities and delivery of market leading metrics.”
“The business continues to deepen its position as a global leader in airtime credit solutions to its partner mobile network operators while building out a pipeline of exciting new scalable products.”
Convergence Partners is a pan-African ICT–focused private equity player, delivering enhanced investment returns while underpinning Continental development. Convergence Partners has a proven record of accomplishment of developing new investment opportunities as well as actively adding value to investments across the lifecycle of ICT assets.
As impact investors, Convergence Partners brings its skills, experience, and capital to accelerate ICT infrastructure development on the Continent, focusing on initiatives that increase the availability of communications, broadband services, and new technology offerings to the people of Africa. For more on Convergence Partners click here.
Channel VAS is the premium FinTech provider of mobile financial services, airtime credit & airtime advance services, handset loans and big data analytics, all through cutting edge proprietary analytics tools.
Operating since 2012 and expanded to more than 42 countries in Africa, Middle East, Asia and LATAM with a focus in emerging markets, Channel VAS supported mobile network operators (MNOs) and financial institutions to provide over R204 million ($12 million) credit daily to more than 750 million people in 2020 and continues to expand to new markets globally.
