• Mediterrania Capital bought Australian Amcor's Moroccan packaging unit

• Enko Capital took over Servair's Ivorian fast-food business hours later

• The back-to-back deals signal new rotation where global majors are shedding mid-cap African platforms, and African PE firms are stepping in

Mediterrania Capital Partners, a Malta-based private equity firm with €1.2 billion in assets under management, agreed last Thursday to acquire 100% of Société Marocaine des Manufactures de Mohammedia, the holding company of Amcor Flexibles Mohammedia, from Amcor Group. Hours earlier, pan-African investor Enko Capital had finalised the takeover of Servair's fast-food operations in the Côte d’Ivoire, including the local Burger King franchise.

The Mohammedia plant, founded in 1949 and integrated into Amcor in 2010, supplies flexible packaging to dairy, pharmaceutical, food and home-care clients across Morocco. Enko's deal extracts the non-aviation arm of Servair, the Air France-KLM catering subsidiary now owned by Swiss group Gategroup, which is refocusing on aircraft catering at Abidjan airport. Neither transaction disclosed a price.

"AFM represents a solid industrial platform in a resilient sector, with opportunities to further expand its product offering and customer base. This acquisition reflects our firm's strategy of investing in market-leading mid-sized companies across Africa," Albert Alsina, founder and chief executive officer of Mediterrania Capital Partners, said in a statement posted on the firm's website. Alsina sits on the board of the African Private Capital Association.

The two deals, signed within a week, mark the most visible local pickup of mid-cap industrial assets cut loose by global owners since Enko Capital led a consortium that bought Société Générale Mauritania from the French bank in August 2025. Africa's M&A volume grew by 65% in Morocco in 2025, while Egypt and South Africa together accounted for 50% of the continent's deal value, according to a February report by HSF Kramer.

Sector rotation

The mid-cap divestments fit a pattern that began in 2023, when Diageo Plc cut its majority stake in Guinness Nigeria amid Nigerian currency devaluation. Unilever Plc trimmed its African footprint the same year, and Nestlé SA restructured its operations in Central and West Africa. Société Générale SA has sold subsidiaries in Mauritania, Burkina Faso, Mozambique, Madagascar and Cameroon since 2023, with most of the buyers headquartered on the continent.

The shift is supported by larger pools of African-managed capital. Mediterrania closed its fourth fund, MC IV Mid Cap, at €600 million earlier this year, the firm's largest vehicle since launch in 2013. Adenia Partners hits a $180 million hard cap on its Adenia Entrepreneurial Fund I in March, surpassing a $150 million target. Amethis raised €406 million for AFIII, its third pan-African fund, in 2024. Together, the three managers have signed at least eight industrial mid-cap deals in north and southern Africa over the past 12 months, according to data from Africa Private Equity News and Africa Capital Digest.

Not every transaction reflects strength. Some divestments are forced by currency losses or regulatory friction, and the buy-side discount can be steep. Diageo's exit from Guinness Nigeria closed at a valuation depressed by the naira's slide. Société Générale priced several African subsidiaries below their accounting value in 2024 and 2025, according to filings reviewed by Reuters. African private equity firms acquiring these assets must absorb the same macro risks that drove the sellers out, with balance sheets a fraction of the size of the sellers'.

The pipeline points to more rotation ahead. AVCA recorded 530 private-capital deals worth $5.1 billion in Africa in 2025, an 8% increase year-on-year and the only global region to grow as private investment fell elsewhere. With Amcor and Gategroup now testing whether disposals to local buyers preserve operations and jobs, other multinationals reviewing African exposure may follow. The next signal will come in the second quarter, when Société Générale is expected to provide an update on its remaining African disposals.

Idriss Linge