(Bloomberg) -- Apex Group, the Carlyle-backed financial services firm, said it will set up Botswana’s first fund administration office with a local head and team this year.
The company, which has $3 trillion in assets under administration globally, aims to employ at least seven people in the diamond-producing country by the end of 2024, Itumeleng Moremong, its new head for Botswana, said in an interview. The office will be supported by a large team in neighboring South Africa, she said.
“We are a market that is quite cash flush and is currently going through regulatory changes to increase fund allocation to 50% locally by 2027,” said Moremong. “This allows the market to expand on its product offerings and poses a great opportunity for Apex”.
Apex’s Botswana unit cements the global financial services provider’s expansion in sub-Saharan Africa, home to six of the top-10 fastest-growing economies in the world in 2024. It bought Maitland Group, Boutique Collective Investments and Boutique Investment Partners in South Africa, the continent’s most advanced economy, and started up in Namibia in 2023.
Its Botswana unit has $1.8 billion under fund administration, which it plans to grow by 30% over the next three years, Moremong said. The nation’s fund management industry is valued at about $15 billion, with private equity and property funds rapidly expanding, she said.
In addition to Carlyle, Apex Group’s investors include San Francisco-based Genstar Capital, TA Associates and Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala Investment Company.
(Updates with company’s latest assets-under-management figure in second paragraph.)
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