Harith General Partners (Harith) has sold its stake in MainOne, West Africa’s largest communications services operator to Equinix, the world’s largest digital infrastructure company, following the achievement of all regulatory approvals.

MainOne is one of the largest investments of the Harith-managed $630m Pan African Infrastructure Development Fund (PAIDF).

The sale of MainOne represents an important milestone for Harith and its PAIDF investors.

MainOne was established to finance, construct, own and operate a state-of-the art subsea fibre-optic broadband cable system more than 7 000km long.

The cable connects the west coast of Africa by means of a landing in Nigeria,Ghana, Cote dÍvoire and Senegal to the rest of the world through a landing in Portugal and onward connectivity to London.

With a presence in over ten countries in West Africa through fibre infrastructure and data centres – MainOne’s world-class and transformational digital infrastructure has improved connectivity and internet access for millions of people and businesses in West Africa – propelling these economies and societies onto a higher growth trajectory. MainOne employs 600 people and has created over 100 000 direct and indirect jobs in the markets where it operates.

The business has built a customer base of over 1000 enterprise customers and is connected to 5 Internet Exchanges with 50 PoPs across West Africa.

MainOne further diversified and expanded its product offering and revenue mix when it in invested in a tier 3+ Data Centre (MDXi) a few years ago.

This resulted in the Company offering non-connectivity services, including cloud offerings and disaster recovery services.

Sipho Makhubela, Harith CEO, said: “The success of Main One illustrates Harith’s proven ability to identify compelling value opportunities that have the potential to deliver both developmental and financial returns to investors. By investing in a transformational communications infrastructure project, Harith played a leading role in bridging the digital divide and providing West Africa with the high speed, reliable connectivity it needed to support rapid economic growth and integration with the global economy.”

“With a successful exit from Main One secured and a deep team of investment professionals specialised in infrastructure, we are now well poised to capitalise on the next wave of digital opportunities on the continent,” he said.