Helios Credit Partners, L.P.

Helios Credit Partners, L.P. was established to capitalize on the significant and growing gap between supply of and demand for direct lending to African businesses by making loans to public and private companies across Africa. The fund’s investment strategy is to build a diversified portfolio of dollar-denominated loans to healthy, cash generative African businesses, with the objective of generating mid-teens unlevered returns, augmented by structural enhancements to minimize downside risks, and upside features to capture additional value.

Financial description

Given the limited availability of both senior and mezzanine debt across Africa and the lack of structuring flexibility available, there is currently a significant unmet demand for debt funding. The opportunity encompasses a broad range of first and second lien loans, convertible loans, shareholder loans and different forms of cash-flow and asset-backed financings. Domestic credit provision to the private sector is low despite strong GDP growth, and Helios believes that low levels of financial intermediation have translated into a severe shortage of private sector credit which is unlikely to be addressed in the medium term. Availability of bank lines is limited, and local debt capital markets do not provide a viable alternative as most countries in Africa lack functional or deep corporate bond markets.