GroFin Private Equity to inject $125m in Africa

A PRIVATE equity fund plans to put money in risk capital investments and other business support to five African countries.

The GroFin Africa fund has so far raised $125m at its fund’s first closing.

This represents the largest fundraising success by GroFin in a single fund to date, a fact that highlights appetite for investors for Africa. The fund would invest between $100,000 and $1m in seven countries including Uganda, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, Tanzania and South Africa. It expects to raise $160m by November.

The economic, political and social reforms coupled with several years of high growth that have taken place across many African economies, made it a “very attractive growth finance environment.

GroFin specialises in integrating the much-needed risk finance with business development support.

This helps fill a void between micro-finance and private equity as very few financiers target the emerging growth finance asset class. The fund will target growth finance opportunities in all sectors like consumer goods services, logistics /transport, private education, manufacturing and agribusiness.

The fund was created by GroFin, a leading growth finance fund management company specialising in risk capital and business support for small-and-medium businesses in emerging markets.

$700 Billion Bailout Bill has failed in the House

Treasury’s $700 billion Wall Street bail out plan collapsed in the House, sending a upset through financial markets.

Republican defections proved critical to the massive government intervention, which was rejected 228-205. In spite of bipartisan appeals from the leadership, anti-Wall Street sentiment and the huge scale of the proposed government intervention proved too much for Treasury to prevail.

Democrats more than delivered a majority of their caucus, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) held the vote open to bring her numbers up to 140 votes for the package. But Republicans never topped 70, and the final GOP split was 133 against the bill and only 65 for the measure.

After the vote, Republicans claimed that the Democratic leadership had been warned that fewer than 60 Republicans would vote for the bill. Democrats denied the claim, saying they never would have brought the bill to the floor if they had been told there was so little Republican support.

Citigroup Agrees to Buy Wachovia's Banking Operations

Citigroup Inc., the biggest U.S. bank by assets, will acquire banking operations of Wachovia Corp. for about $2.16 billion after shares of the North Carolina lender collapsed under the weight of overdue mortgages.

The all-stock deal equals about $1 a share for the Charlotte-based bank, ranked sixth by assets in the U.S. All depositors will be protected, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., which helped broker the takeover by Citigroup. The New York-based bank plans to cut its own dividend in half and raise $10 billion in capital as it takes on Wachovia's senior and subordinated debt.

The purchase gives Citigroup about 3,300 branches and offices in 21 states. Wachovia will continue to own the A.G. Edwards Inc. brokerage and the Evergreen mutual-fund family.

Warren Buffet is backing Goldman Sachs in in $7.5 Billion Fundraising

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. won the backing of Warren Buffett, the world's preeminent stock-picker, as the Wall Street firm seeks to raise cash from investors whose faith in the investment-banking business model has been shaken.

The bank soared 11 percent to $138.17 in German trading today. For Goldman, the endorsement came at a price. Berkshire Hathaway Inc., led by the 78-year-old billionaire, is buying $5 billion of perpetual preferred stock with a 10 percent dividend. Berkshire also gets warrants to buy $5 billion of common stock at $115 a share at any time in the next five years. The common stock closed yesterday at $125.05, providing Buffett with an instant paper profit of $437 million.

In addition to raising money from Buffett, Goldman said it plans to sell at least $2.5 billion of common stock to the public. It will be the firm's first common stock offering since 2000. No details of the planned offering were disclosed in a statement released by the New York-based company yesterday.

Venture Capital & Angel Investors

Venture Capital & Angel Investors

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First Reserve Corp. has completed its C$3.7 billion buyout of CHC Helicopter

First Reserve Corp. has completed its C$3.7 billion buyout of CHC Helicopter Corp. (NYSE: FLI), a provider of helicopter services to the global offshore oil and gas industry. Morgan Stanley led the debt syndicate.

The Arrangement was approved by CHC’s shareholders at a special meeting held on April 29, 2008, and was approved by the British Columbia Supreme Court on May 1, 2008. Under the Arrangement, 6922767 Canada Inc. acquired all of CHC’s outstanding Class A Subordinate Voting Shares and Class B Multiple Voting Shares for cash consideration of CDN$32.68 per share.

It is expected that the CHC Class A Subordinate Voting Shares and Class B Multiple Voting Shares will be delisted from the TSX and the NYSE (in respect of the Class A shares) later this week.

Also, on September 15, 2008, CHC’s cash tender offer (the “Offer”) for all outstanding CHC’s 7 3/8% senior subordinated notes due 2014 (the “Notes”) and the related consent solicitation expired. CHC indicated that approximately US$392 million principal amount of the Notes was validly tendered to the Offer. All Notes validly tendered were purchased by CHC and submitted to the trustee for cancellation. As a result of CHC’s purchase of the tendered Notes, the amendments to the Notes indenture contemplated by the consent solicitation have become operative.

CHC intends to apply to the relevant securities regulatory authorities to cease to be a reporting issuer in each of the jurisdictions in Canada where is it currently reporting.