The Carlyle Group, a global alternative asset manager with $193bn of assets under management, has announced plans to sell its current minority stake in Export Trading Group (ETG), an African agricultural commodities supply chain manager, to the company management team/founders.

Financial terms of the transaction, which is planned to close in the third quarter of 2015, were not disclosed.

The Carlyle Group together with the Pembani Remgro Infrastructure Fund invested $210m in ETG in 2012.

Marlon Chigwende, Managing Director and Co-Head of the Carlyle Sub-Saharan Africa Fund, said: “After making our investment in 2012, we have worked alongside the management team and other investors to help ETG grow and build value, while supporting African smallholder farmers.”

“Carlyle has a strong track record of helping companies in emerging markets become highly competitive in today’s global economy, and our time working with ETG has been valuable and rewarding. We wish the ETG team continued success as they take the business forward,” he said.

Founded in 1967, ETG owns and manages a vertically-integrated agriculture supply chain with operations in procurement, processing, warehousing, transportation, distribution and merchandising.

ETG has more than 7,000 employees across 30 African countries and operates 30 processing plants and 300 warehouses.

ETG connects African smallholder farmers to consumers around the world by procuring, processing and distributing agricultural commodities including maize, pulses, wheat, rice, cashew nuts, soya, fertilizer, sugar, coffee and tea.

Looking ahead, ETG will continue to strengthen their business along all areas of the agriculture value chain.

This includes strengthening procurement of commodity within existing countries of operation and expanding this model to new countries, covering new commodities and setting up a greater number of processing facilities.

Ketan Patel, Managing Director of ETG, said: “We thank Carlyle for their commitment to investing in ETG alongside Pembani Remgro, Standard Chartered Private Equity and the company founders.”

“We will continue to focus on expanding operations across Sub-Saharan Africa, India, China and South-East Asia and to create new markets for African smallholder farmers,” he said.

Standard Chartered’s Africa Private Equity division (SCPE), the first private equity investor in ETG, remains a shareholder in the company.

Standard Chartered’s Africa Private Equity division (SCPE), the first private equity investor in ETG, remains a shareholder in the company.

In June 2010, SCPE alongside the International Finance Corporation and the OPEC Fund for International Development signed a $120m structured soft commodity syndicated loan for ETG.

In 2012, SCPE invested an additional $74m in ETG.