Vantage Capital, a leading African mezzanine finance fund manager, has successfully exited its investment in Equity Invest, a prominent Moroccan technology group. This marks the first full exit for Vantage Capital in Morocco, a country that has become a key market for the firm.
Vantage initially provided Equity Invest with an €8 million mezzanine finance facility in October 2019. This funding was a crucial component of a leveraged management buy-out, allowing Equity Invest’s founder, Ali Bettahi, to purchase the shares held by a private equity investor in one of the group’s key subsidiaries, Unisystem Group. This transaction was a pioneering deal in Morocco, as it was one of the first leveraged management buy-outs in the country to be financed with a structured mezzanine instrument.
Equity Invest is a diverse technology group composed of six companies with business lines spanning various high-growth sectors. These include electronic security, audiovisual multimedia systems, renewable energy, digital payments, e-commerce, and hospital management software.
According to Luc Albinski, the executive chairman at Vantage Capital, the partnership with Equity Invest and Mr. Bettahi was instrumental in establishing Vantage’s presence in Morocco. Since the initial investment, Vantage has gone on to complete a total of four investments in the country over a six-year period.
Equity Invest was our first investment in Morocco. The transaction, which consisted of a leveraged management buy-out funded by a structured mezzanine finance instrument, was also a first-of-its-kind in the Kingdom. We would like to thank Mr Bettahi for his trust, as our partnership enabled Vantage to establish a presence in Morocco – which has since grown to become one of our key markets and where we are proud to have now concluded four investments over six years.
