The Capital Quest | Amethis hires investment director from East Africa PE firm Ascent

Amethis, which was one of the most active private equity investors in Africa last year with half a dozen new transactions and exits and has already struck two deals and two liquidity moves in the first eight months of this year, has made a replacement hire to maintain its presence in East Africa.

Amethis had lost an investment director at its Nairobi office three months ago to Admaius Capital. It has now brought in Marieke Geurts to the team in Kenya.

Geurts comes with over 10 years of experience, of which the last seven years has been in the African private equity industry. She has been with East Africa-focused PE firm Ascent Capital and was elevated as a principal in the firm last year.

Prior to Ascent Capital, she had a short stint at consultancy firm McKinsey in Amsterdam. She would join senior partner Jean-Sebastien Bergasse and investment director Frank-Astère Ndiyo Butoyi, who are supported by two analysts at the Nairobi office.

She takes the seat from Stephane Sapor, who was serving as an investment director at the Nairobo office before moving to Admaius recently.

Amethis has had an equally busy 2022 with a buyout deal along with SPE Capital and EBRD in Egypt, where they acquired GlobalCorp, and invested in Ivory Coast’s SIBM.

In addition, it has inked two exit moves.

The pan-African private equity firm joined co-investors DEG, MCB Private Equity and IFC to sell a stake in Kenyan supermarket chain Naivas in June. Recently, it decided to sell its stake in Pétro Ivoire, a retail distributor of oil and gas products in Cote d’Ivoire.

Related