The Carlyle Group has acquired through its Sub-Saharan Africa Fund, a 75% stake in CMC Networks (CMC), Africa’s largest managed connectivity provider, for over $100m (R1.4bn). 

Financing was provided by Standard Bank of South Africa and Rand Marchant Bank.

Eric Kump, Managing Director and Co-Head of Carlyle’s Sub-Saharan Africa Fund, said: “We are excited about our partnership with CMC and its talented management team. We believe fast growing data demand in Africa and the Middle East offers tremendous growth opportunities for CMC, and we look forward to using our sector expertise and global network to help them achieve their goals”.

Founded in 1989, CMC has the largest managed connectivity network in Africa, with a comprehensive office footprint spanning some 70 countries in Africa and the Middle East, and plans to further extend into Asia and South America. 

Through its unique ability to provide services in operationally challenging regions of Africa and the Middle East, while providing world class reliability and latency standards, CMC serves over 50 global telecommunications carriers, including 12 out of 14 of the largest ones. 

These carriers use CMC to provide fast, reliable internet connections to global enterprises operating in Africa and the Middle East.

Grant Walker, Founder and CEO of CMC, said: “Over the last 28 years, CMC has grown its network organically, and has responded to this region’s increasing appetite for reliable and secure internet connectivity.” 

“CMC’s research has shown that Africa’s demand for high quality bandwidth is growing by some 30% p.a. CMC has cultivated a blue-chip customer base driving international traffic into Africa but is also presently experiencing a growing amount of traffic leaving Africa from African customers. This investment by Carlyle will accelerate CMC’s growth through greater investments into new partnerships and acquisitions,” he said.

Martin Springer, MD of CMC, added that the firm has quadrupled its revenue in the last five years and at present has in excess of 100 Points Of Presence (POPs), 2000 circuits, and, through its carrier customers, currently manages high quality internet connections to over 400 enterprises, including over half among the Fortune 500. 

“We also have an extensive geographic footprint, which enables us to serve multi-geography and multi-site customers. We believe this investment from Carlyle is opportune as it will allow us to rapidly pursue new markets, products and avenues for growth,” he said.

Established in 2012 the Carlyle Sub-Saharan Africa Fund, with $698m of committed capital, has invested over $300m to date across a variety of industries, including logistics, agribusiness, mining services, retail and financial services, and across a variety of geographies, including Nigeria, Mozambique, Zambia, Tanzania and South Africa. 

This is the seventh investment by the fund, which makes buyout and growth capital investments in private and public companies from offices in Johannesburg, South Africa and Lagos, Nigeria.