Business Partners International East Africa

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The proposed project is an IFC equity investment of US$6.0 million in Business Partners International East Africa LLC (“BPI EA” or “the Company”), a greenfield private limited liability company that will provide tailored financing to underserved SMEs in East Africa. The project represents the evolution of IFC’s relationship with Business Partners Limited (“BP” or “the Sponsor”), a South African SME investor with over 30 years of experience investing in over 70,000 SMEs. IFC and BP have been partners in SME financing since 2004 when the two organizations set up Business Partners International (“BPI”) whose aim was to bring the successful BP SME financing business model to other Sub-Saharan African countries. Since 2004, BPI has set up four funds, including most recently the regional Southern Africa SME Fund that covers Zambia, Namibia and Malawi.BPI EA is the evolution and scaling up of the SME financing model from a fund with a limited life and high set up costs to a more efficient and permanent vehicle that can provide the long term financing that SMEs need. The project has the unique opportunity to leverage the BP experience, processes, back-office and knowledge developed over more than 30 years of experience in high growth East African countries where SME financing is even more difficult to obtain than in South Africa.BPI EA will invest in SMEs through its subsidiaries in Kenya and Rwanda where BPI is already active through the BPI Kenya and Rwanda SME Funds, followed by setting up a subsidiary in Uganda where BPI does not yet operate. BPI EA’s Kenya subsidiary will to take over investing activities from the BPI Kenya fund and its Rwanda subsidiary will acquire 60% of the BPI Rwanda SME Fund.