Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire – Vantage Capital, Africa’s largest mezzanine fund manager, announced today that it has provided €19 million of mezzanine funding to Pétro Ivoire, a leading distributor of oil & gas products in Côte d’Ivoire. The company operates a network of 72 petrol stations across the country (3rd placed after Total and Vivo Energy) and is also the largest gas distributor, with over 1.7 million gas bottles in circulation. It also holds a 40% stake in Côte d’Ivoire’s largest gas storage and bottle filling facility, SAEPP. The company sold 230 million litres of petroleum products in 2017.

Vantage’s funding has enabled the founding family to regain a controlling equity stake in the company by facilitating the buy-back of equity from two exiting private equity investors, Amethis and the West Africa Emerging Markets Growth Fund.  Founded in 1994 by Mathieu Kadio-Morokro, the company is now run by his son, Sébastien Kadio-Morokro, who was recently selected as one of the top ten Young Global Leaders in sub-Saharan Africa by the World Economic Forum. The exit of the private equity investors has made room for a French-based gas trading company, Geogas Entreprise SAS, to take a stake in the business alongside the founding family…