Letshego Holding Limited, which is based in Botswana and offers deposit and lending services in 10 African countries, recently paid an undisclosed price to Jumo World Limited, a financial technology firm registered in Mauritius, for all of the shares of afb Ghana, which has 60,000 customers and total assets of GHS 97 million (USD 23 million) as of December 2016. Both afb and Letshego lend for
Category: Deals
MICROCAPITAL BRIEF: EBRD Loaning $5m to FondiBESA for Rural MSMEs, Farmers in Albania
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), a multilateral institution headquartered in the United Kingdom, recently announced that it will loan USD 5 million for rural micro-, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) and individual farmers in Albania.
MICROCAPITAL BRIEF: FMO Loans $29m to El Salvador’s Fedecredito for On-lending to Cooperatives, Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Partner Mikrokreditna Fondacija for Agricultural Microenterprises
Nederlandse Financierings-Maatschappij voor Ontwikkelingslanden (FMO), a Dutch development bank, recently announced two loans to support the provision of financial services to people with low incomes in El Salvador and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
FMO is lending USD 24 million to
MICROCAPITAL BRIEF: C-Quadrat’s Dual Return Vision Microfinance Funds Loan $63m to Various MFIs
Austria’s C-Quadrat Asset Management informed MicroCapital today that its Dual Return Vision Microfinance and Dual Return Vision Microfinance-Local Currency funds loaned a total approximately equivalent to USD 63.5 million during December to unspecified microfinance institutions (MFIs) in countries including Ghana, Indonesia, Kenya, Mongolia and Sri Lanka. The
MICROCAPITAL BRIEF: Invest in Visions Lends $2m to Beige Capital Savings and Loans of Ghana
Germany’s Invest in Visions Mikrofinanzfonds, a fund advised by Belgium’s Incofin, recently agreed to loan up to USD 5 million to Beige Capital Savings and Loans, a unit of Ghana’s Beige Group, which offers banking, pension, insurance and investment services. Among Beige Capital’s goals is to “be the [small and medium-sized enterprise] bank of choice across Ghana.”
As part of the process of considering
MICROCAPITAL BRIEF: Colombia’s FM Bucaramanga, Ecuador’s Produbanco Borrow $12m for SMEs via Symbiotics’ Bond Platform
Switzerland-based Symbiotics SA, which specializes in micro-, small and medium-sized enterprise investment, recently issued bonds for two South American financial institutions: COP 33 billion (USD 10 million) for Colombia’s Fundación Mundial de la Mujer Bucaramanga (FMMB) and USD 2.25 million for Produbanco of Ecuador. The latter was the second of
MICROCAPITAL BRIEF: EBRD Provides Local-currency Credit Worth $60m for MSMEs in Kazakhstan Through ForteBank
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), a multilateral institution headquartered in the United Kingdom, recently announced that it will provide a local-currency credit line equivalent to approximately USD 60 million for micro-, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) in Kazakhstan.
MICROCAPITAL BRIEF: EFSE Loans $16m to Halkbank for Housing, Microenterprise, Small-business Lending in Macedonia
The European Fund for Southeast Europe, a microfinance investment vehicle that was launched by Germany’s KfW Development Bank, announced today that it has issued senior loans totaling EUR 15 million (USD 16 million) to Halkbank AD Skopje, which describes itself as Macedonia’s “first downscaling bank,
MICROCAPITAL BRIEF: Welcome Financial Group Acquires, Renames Green Central Microfinance of Cambodia
South Korea’s Welcome Financial Group (WFG) recently rebranded Cambodia’s Green Central Microfinance Limited as Welcome Finance (Cambodia). WFG closed its acquisition of the microlender after receiving central bank approval for the transaction in April. While the purchase price and the identity of the seller are not available, Green Central was held by
MICROCAPITAL BRIEF: MSME Lender FondiBesa Buys VisionFund Albania
The government of Albania recently announced that fondiBesa, a Tirana-based lender to micro-, small and medium-sized enterprises, has agreed to acquire the local arm of US-based nonprofit VisionFund for
MICROCAPITAL BRIEF: ACBA-Credit Agricole Bank, Armeconombank (AEB) Borrow $8.7m via Symbiotics’ Bond Platform to Benefit SMEs in Armenia
Switzerland-based Symbiotics SA, which specializes in micro-, small and medium-sized enterprise investment, recently issued bonds for two Armenian banks: USD 5 million for ACBA-Credit Agricole Bank and USD 3.7 million for Armeconombank (AEB). The latter was the second of two tranches this year totaling USD 10 million for AEB. All of these transactions were intermediated through
MICROCAPITAL BRIEF: UN’s Livelihoods and Food Security Trust Fund (LIFT) Provides $10m to The Currency Exchange Fund (TCX) to Subsidize Third-party Lending in Local Currency to Microfinance Institutions in Myanmar
The Currency Exchange Fund (TCX), which is based in the Netherlands, recently raised USD 10 million from the UN-managed Livelihoods and Food Security Trust Fund (LIFT) to reduce the cost of foreign-exchange hedging for “impact lenders” funding microfinance institutions (MFIs) in Myanmar. TCX provides this hedging service, absorbing the currency-exchange risk on the loans, so the lenders can commit US dollars while the MFIs access funding denominated in kyat. Via multiple microloan repayment cycles over three years, the MFIs are expected to gain sufficient liquidity from the LIFT-supported facility to fund
MICROCAPITAL BRIEF: C-Quadrat’s Dual Return Vision Microfinance Funds Loan $22m in Burkina Faso, China, Colombia, El Salvador, Paraguay, Sri Lanka
Austria’s C-Quadrat Asset Management informed MicroCapital today that its Dual Return Vision Microfinance and Dual Return Vision Microfinance-Local Currency funds loaned a total approximately equivalent to USD 22 million during November to unspecified microfinance institutions (MFIs) in
MICROCAPITAL BRIEF: Microfinance Institution EFC Tunisia Nets $2.1m from Agence Francaise de Developpement (AFD): Half for Technical Assistance, Half as Equity via Proparco
The Entrepreneur Financial Centre (EFC) of Tunisia, a microfinance institution (MFI) operated by Canada’s Développement International Desjardins (DID), recently obtained an equity investment of EUR 1 million (USD 1.1 million) from Société de Promotion et de Participation pour La Coopération Economique (Proparco), a development finance institution of the French government’s Agence Francaise de Developpement (AFD). AFD also committed EUR 1 million (USD 1.1 million) for
MICROCAPITAL BRIEF: Symbiotics Issues $11m in Bonds for Coris Bank International of Burkina Faso
Symbiotics SA, a Swiss firm specializing in micro-, small and medium-sized enterprise investment, recently issued bonds totaling EUR 10 million (USD 10.6 million) for Coris Bank International SA, an institution in Burkina Faso whose mission includes a particular emphasis on serving small and medium-sized enterprises. The issue was transacted through
MICROCAPITAL BRIEF: Symbiotics Issues $22m in Bonds for Banco Improsa, Grupo Promerica to Benefit Costa Rican, Salvadoran SMEs
Symbiotics, a Swiss firm specializing in micro-, small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) investment, recently issued bonds for two Central American banks serving SMEs. This included bonds totaling USD 15.7 million for Inversiones Financieras Promerica, the Salvadoran unit of Grupo Promerica, which was founded in Nicaragua and now serves nine countries in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Symbiotics also issued its second tranche of 2016 for Costa Rica’s Banco Improsa in the amount of
MICROCAPITAL BRIEF: D.light Raises $15m in Equity from Energy Access Ventures, KawiSafi, NewQuest, Omidyar to Expand Sales of Solar Products via Microloans, Develop Televisions for Emerging Markets
D.light, a privately-owned retailer of solar appliances based in the US city of San Francisco, recently raised USD 22.5 million in funding to expand its PayGo platform, which offers microloans to finance purchases of solar products.
MICROCAPITAL BRIEF: IFC, Cathay United Bank Loaning $50m to VPBank for SMEs in Vietnam with Support From Women Entrepreneurs Opportunity Facility
The International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the US-based World Bank Group, and Cathay United Bank, a Taiwan-based commercial bank, recently announced that they will each lend USD 25 million to Vietnam Prosperity Joint Stock Commercial Bank (VPBank) to support small businesses in Vietnam.