Private Equity Strengthens

This is Africa reports:

According to research from the Emerging Markets Private Equity Association, fundraising for sub-Saharan African funds grew from $800m in 2005 to $2.2bn in 2008. Perhaps more surprisingly, fundraising in the first half of 2009 held up well despite the economic downturn curtailing GDP growth across Africa to just over 1 percent. EMPEA’s figures also point to a diversification of the funding base – in 2006, only 4 percent of the limited partners surveyed by the trade association were invested in African funds, compared to 38 percent in 2009.