East Africa focussed private equity (PE) firm Ascent Capital has today completed a deal to acquire an undisclosed stake at medium sized construction material manufacturer, Kisumu Concrete Products (KCP).
The deal funded through the Sh6billion strong Ascent Rift Valley Fund is the fourth is the fourth by Ascent Capital in the region.
The two firms kept mum on the structure and value of the deal only saying there was a capital injection that would finance KCP’s expansion plans.
However, Ascent targets scalable fast growing enterprises with investments of between Sh500 million and $1.5 billion per investee company.
“The wider western region holds great potential for growth and we identified Kisumu Concrete Products Ltd as the company we want to grow with. We will work closely with the KCP management team to develop and grow the company for long term growth and profitability,” said David Owino, Managing Partner at Ascent Capital during the announcement of the deal in Kisumu.
The KCP deal brings to four the total number of investments by the fund in East Africa, having previously made investments into laboratory services in Ethiopia and distribution and financial services in Uganda.
“We pride ourselves at having cast our nets outside Nairobi the Capital City to have these conversations. There are a number of interesting and bankable businesses that we have been in talks with already for some time. We will be announcing our fifth investment soon,” David Owino concluded.
KCP has been in operations for 40 years, providing the construction industry with quality products ranging from aggregates, pozzolana, concrete blocks, paving blocks, ready-mix concrete, roofing tiles and other concrete pre-cast items.
Speaking during the announcement KCP Chief Executive Officer Vimal Rabadia, said that the funds injected into the company will go into expansion, scaling up production to meet market demand and towards advancing the use of technology to ensure production of quality products.
“The construction industry continues to evolve and the demand for construction materials is at an all-time high. Deploying advanced technology will enable us to meet the increased demand and also improve on the quality of our products,” Rabadia said.