Munich — DLA Piper has advi­sed the French invest­ment fund “The Invest­ment and Support Fund for Busi­nesses in Africa” (FISEA) in the case of an invest­ment in the Zambian bank AB Bank Zambia Ltd.(ABZ) with a total volume of 25 million Zambian Kwacha (approx. EUR 1.6 million). Further share­hol­ders of ABZ are Access­Hol­ding Micro­fi­nance Ltd, Inter­na­tio­nal Finance Corpo­ra­tion (IFC) and the Kredit­an­stalt für Wieder­auf­bau (KfW). Upon comple­tion of the tran­sac­tion, FISEA will hold a total equity inte­rest of 22.5% in ABZ.

FISEA belongs to the Agence Fran­çaise de Déve­lo­pe­ment (AFD) and is mana­ged by its subsi­diary Prop­arco. This specia­li­zes in private sector deve­lo­p­ment and invests in compa­nies, banks, micro­fi­nance insti­tu­ti­ons and invest­ment funds opera­ting in sub-Saha­ran Africa. With an invest­ment target of EUR 250 million, FISEA is one of the key compon­ents of the French initia­tive to promote growth and employ­ment in Africa.

ABZ is the only bank that finan­ces SMEs and micro-entre­pre­­neurs in Zambia. At the end of 2017, total assets amoun­ted to EUR 24 million. ABZ opera­tes through a network of seven bran­ches, employs 419 people and has 14,754 borrowers.

The DLA Piper team led by part­ner Simon Vogel also included senior asso­ciate Michael Rebholz (both Corporate/Private Equity, Munich).