UGGC & Associés advises AfricInvest Fund for the take over of Holdefi

UGGC & Associés acted as advisers to a pool of shareholders consisting of AfricInvest Fund (fund managed by Tuninvest Group), Tunisie Leasing, FMO and Finnfund, in connection with their takeover of Holdefi, a French holding company with six subsidiaries in Africa (Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Congo, Gabon, Ivory Coast and Mali), specialists in the automobile credit field. Originally, Holdefi’s majority shareholders were CFAO (Pinault Group) and OPTORG (ONA Group), which both wanted to cease involvement in operation management and only remain minority shareholders. This takeover was completed by way of a subscription to a reserved capital increase by the group of new investors, in an amount of approximately EUR 6.5 million. At the same time, CFAO and OPTORG also subscribed to a reserved capital increase in an amount of approximately EUR 4 million. This recapitalization allowed Holdefi to consolidate its control over the African subsidiaries through its acquisition of securities held by CFAO and OPTORG. The legal aspects of this transaction were handled by Patrick Larrivé, partner and Samuel Schmidt and Yves Mondellini, associates, of UGGC & Associés (Casablanca and Paris offices), for the group of new investors. CFAO were advised in-house by Pierre-Henri Legrand (legal department) and Bertrand Mailhebiau (financial operations department). OPTORG were advised in-house by Loïc Metier (legal department).