Carlyle made his first investment in sub-Saharan

The Pembani Remgro Infrastructure Fund and Global Alternative Asset Manager The Carlyle Group today announced that they will make a strategic minority investment in Export Trading Group (ETG), an African agricultural commodities supply chain manager. This is the first investment by Carlyle’s Sub-Saharan Africa Fund and the Pembani Remgro Infrastructure Fund. Standard Chartered’s Africa Private Equity (SCPE) division, the first private equity investor in ETG, is increasing its investment from January 2012 and ETG’s founders have also subscribed for additional equity. The transaction is expected to close in November 2012.

Marlon Chigwende, Managing Director and Co-Head of the Carlyle Sub-Saharan Africa Fund, said “This is a remarkable opportunity to invest in a business with a proven model that is highly scalable, has delivered impressive financial performance and has tremendous development impact on Africa and its economies. Carlyle has a strong track record of helping companies in emerging markets become highly competitive, global companies. We look forward to accelerating ETG’s growth, building value for its shareholders and supporting African smallholder farmers.”

This is Carlyle’s first investment through its new fund for sub-Saharan Africa for which it plans to raise $ 500 million.

Herc van Wyk, CEO of Pembani Remgro Infrastructure Managers, said “ETG offers a unique combination of strong management and access to both the agriculture supply chain in Africa as well as key markets in China and India. We look forward to supporting the expansion of the company’s supply chain footprint and believe that it offers an exciting growth opportunity.”

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 26 processing plants and 600 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.

In the fiscal year ended March 31, 2012, ETG procured and distributed nearly 1.4 million metric tons of 25 different commodities. Eighty-percent of the Company’s Africa-originated stock was procured from smallholder farmers. Individually, these farmers have no opportunity to integrate into the global economy. However, ETG consolidates hundreds of thousands of farmers into a supply chain and creates the scale and efficiency necessary to be globally competitive. ETG is committed to the economic and social development of the smallholder farmers and the regions in which they live.

Ketan Patel, Managing Director of ETG, said, “We are excited to partner with The Carlyle Group and Pembani Remgro and extend our relationship with Standard Chartered Private Equity. The new capital will allow us to expand operations across Sub-Saharan Africa, India, China and South-East Asia and create new markets for African smallholder farmers.”