Denham Capital, a global energy-focused private equity firm, acting through its International Power Fund, has established its new Africa Power Investment Platform, in partnership with Themis.

The partnership with Themis will build on Denham Capital’s position as an investor and developer of natural gas-fired and renewable power generation assets across Africa.

On the formation of this new platform and partnership, Scott Mackin, Head of Denham’s International Power Team, said: “As far as Africa goes, the Themis team brings an unparalleled combination of development and finance experience, local and cross-border relationships, strong ties with lenders, a substantial target pipeline and execution track record to Denham. We’ve already built up a strong track record of delivery in Africa, and with this new venture we are poised to become leaders in this space.”

The Themis team comprises professionals with wide-ranging experience in power project development, equity investments, lending and arranging senior and sub debt facilities in limited recourse and corporate finance transactions across Africa, Asia, Europe, and the US.  

The Themis team is actively developing circa 400MW across the African continent, including the 44MW Singrobo hydro project in Ivory Coast which is expected to break ground before summer 2018, and is targeting the development of over 1GW of gas-fired and renewable power generation projects in the medium term.

The team will be headquartered in Morocco through the incorporation of a new company, Neo Themis.

Tas Anvaripour, CEO of Neo Themis, said: “We are excited about partnering with Denham Capital in this new growth phase of our operations. With the strong support of a sophisticated private equity firm in the power sector like Denham, we are confident we will achieve our goal of expediting the development, financing and construction of our transformational projects. Despite increased competition, the number of projects reaching closing is still largely below the needs of the continent and this new venture is well positioned to fill the gap.”