Corporate finance and strategy

Our range of specialist advisory services across critical areas of corporate finance and strategy include:

Project Finance and Privatisation

PwC has been providing leading-edge advice on privatisation and project finance to governments and the private sector in Africa Central for over 15 years and we are the market leader in the field.

Our Africa-based privatisation and project finance team gives us unparalleled local contacts and knowledge to shape policy and structures. This team (supported by the nearly 1,000 project finance & privatisation specialists in the rest of the world) delivers the advice and transactions in the region, completing landmark deals every year. Such deals have included advising on major telecommunication company privatisations in Nigeria and Mozambique, bank privatisations in Tanzania, Zambia, Ghana, Ethiopia and Kenya and energy sector reform in Nigeria, Ghana, Tanzania and Zambia.

We believe that we have acted on more privatisations than any other financial adviser in Africa Central – primarily in financial services, energy and water utilities, as well as in the transport, post and telecoms industries.

We provide independent advice, thereby ensuring the best-structured and most competitive deals for our clients.

Our privatisation specialists act for government, privatisation agencies, public authorities and state-owned enterprises preparing for and implementing privatisation programmes. Our team also provides specialist advice to potential investors, management and employees.

Mergers and Acquisitions, Disposals and Finance-raising

Our team in Africa Central helps clients to identify, structure and implement mergers and acquisitions. Our approach to mergers and acquisitions is geared to helping our clients answer four key questions

• How do I run my business to achieve shareholder value?
• Should I merge or acquire? If yes, with whom and how much should I pay?
• Once merged, how do I run my business to keep it on track?
• How do I manage these businesses to achieve value?

We are able to provide a unique combination of corporate finance, accounting and tax expertise to help ensure that our client’s mergers and acquisitions are structured optimally and deliver value. Our recent landmark deals have included advising on a cross-border share swap transaction between South African Breweries and East African Breweries.

Our team also helps companies design and implement corporate restructurings and disposals to release shareholder value. For example, we have helped a local venture capital fund structure and complete a partial sale of a food manufacturing operation to an international investor. Similarly, we helped a shareholder of a well-established motor distributor restructure and sell their shares to a European investor.

Our team also helps clients raise funds for new and expansion projects. We are able to bring our extensive financial structuring and modelling and tax expertise to help our clients develop credible business plans and approach financing institutions. We also help clients raise money on capital markets – for example, we helped a cement manufacturer and a brewery raise funds through the first and second-traded rights issues on the Nairobi Stock Exchange.

Valuation and Strategy

Our Africa Central team includes world-class valuation experts who work with our clients to help them maximise their shareholder value in today's rapidly changing business environment. We believe that our clients would rate us among the best-trained, most creative and insightful professionals in the region.

Our valuation and strategy team focuses on helping clients such as companies and governments understand the value of a range of assets – including business operations, share stakes and intangibles – particularly when such clients are contemplating an acquisition, disposal / privatisation or restructuring.

PwC is a recognised expert in the traditional methods such as cost approach, market comparables, and Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) in emerging markets. In applying these methods, creativity, experience, and thoughtfulness we can enhance both the results and understanding of value. When added together, these insights allow management to change the way an investment, capital allocation or transaction is viewed.

In delivering our services, we focus on achieving clarity about business fundamentals, factors influencing the asset’s worth in the market place and strategic options to drive value in the long term. In addition, we bring objectivity balanced with advocacy and credibility to the process.

Our robust approach to value, and use of leading-edge shareholder value management tools, allows our Valuation & Strategy professionals to move from measuring value to consulting on how to enhance and protect value. And as the only truly global valuation practice operating in our local markets, we have direct access to the necessary local and international knowledge.