Zoscales Partners (ZP) maiden fund (“Zoscales Fund I”) is pleased to announce its investment into Ahadukes Food Products S.C. (Ahadukes). Ahadukes produces mainstream and premium biscuits for the Ethiopian domestic and export markets. The demand-supply gap is continuously growing in Ethiopia as a result of a rapidly growing young population. Ahadukes Food Products S.C. was founded in Ethiopia by Ahadu PLC, a leading local company with interests across several industries. In 2013, Vasari Global, a UK based investment group, joined Ahadukes. Ahadukes has created numerous job opportunities as well as quality local products at reasonable prices.
ZP will partner with management and current shareholders to drive scale initiatives and help the company become East Africa’s leading biscuit producer.
“Besides increasing production lines, ZP’s investment will fund milling and silo to stabilize the impact of seasonality of raw materials and manage costs. ZP will also help prepare Ahadukes for exports while improving local distribution. The investment is expected to immediately create up to 150 new jobs for the community. We welcome ZP to this partnership” says Chairman of the Ahadu Group, Solomon Wondimneh.
Ashenafi Alemu, the partner who led the deal for the East African private equity firm said:
“Despite the unmet demand for biscuits and other processed foods, Ethiopia does not have many world-class food production facilities that can bring economies of scale to both production and distribution. Scale will help develop the supply chain of agricultural outputs helping thousands of smallholder farmers. The scaling potential of Ahadukes' state-of-the-art production facility was a very attractive feature for us.”
Alemu elaborates on why ZP chose Ahadukes:
“Our choice of Ahadukes was strongly driven by the quality of the promoters and the firm's capable management team and we look forward to working with them.”
“Ethiopia has been an important area of our global investment strategy and we invested in Ahadukes as a start-up early on. We believe there is huge potential in this market and are very excited to welcome Ashenafi Alemu and his Zoscales team as partners in this exciting venture. We look forward to a mutually beneficial partnership and fully expect Ahadukes to become Ethiopia’s leading biscuit supplier” said Jacques Fragis who led the deal from Vasari’s side.
FACTS ABOUT AHADUKES
The Ethiopian biscuit producer Ahadukes commissioned its first 50 MT/per day production line in May 2015 in the city of Bishoftu. Its range of branded biscuits includes Marie Gold, Ginger Crunch, Tiger Creams, among others already enjoying great market success. Ahadukes has implemented a unique model across its production facility, applied technology, marketing strategy, corporate structure and corporate governance.
FACTS ABOUT AHADU
Ahadu PLC is an Ethiopian conglomerate company that has been in operation for the past 3 decades and mainly engaged in value adding and development-oriented sectors such as manufacturing, agriculture, health care and food processing. Ahadu is the founder and original investor into Ahadukes with a strong track record in all the sectors in which it operates.
FACTS ABOUT VASARI
Vasari is a leading consumer focused investment group with over 3 decades of experience in owning and operating companies across a variety of industries. Vasari focuses on the manufacturing of branded goods across Europe, Asia and Africa.
FACTS ABOUT ZOSCALES PARTNERS
Zoscales Partners is a private equity firm with impact in East Africa. Zoscales launched its first USD 75M private equity fund, Zoscales Fund I, in the beginning of 2017 and has deployed or committed over 50% of the capital in the fund across 4 investments. Zoscales was recently nominated as “East African fund manager of the year” for 2019 by SuperReturn. In 2020, Zoscales will launch its second fund.
Aman Assefa & Associates Law Office, Clifford Chance LLP, Tameru Wondm Agengehu in cooperation with BonnelliEred, Madun Gujadhur Chambers, advised on legal and BDO provided financial advisory services.