{"id":206135,"date":"2021-10-25T10:17:46","date_gmt":"2021-10-25T08:17:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-newsroom.com\/press\/verdant-capital-advises-baxi-a-leading-superagent-in-nigeria-on-its-sale-to-mfs-africa?lang=en"},"modified":"2021-10-25T10:17:46","modified_gmt":"2021-10-25T08:17:46","slug":"verdant-capital-advises-baxi-a-leading-super-agent-in-nigeria-on-its-sale-to-mfs-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/verdant-capital-advises-baxi-a-leading-super-agent-in-nigeria-on-its-sale-to-mfs-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"Verdant Capital advises Baxi, a leading super-agent in Nigeria, on its sale to MFS Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"image_wrap\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.africa-newsroom.com\/files\/thumb\/aba0125323d36a1\/600\/418\" alt=\"Verdant Capital\" \/><\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>MFS Africa is acquiring Baxi to expand its network into Nigeria, Africa&rsquo;s largest economy and perhaps its most fintech dynamic market.&nbsp;Nigeria is also the largest remittance market in Africa representing one-third of intra-Africa remittance flows, and is home to the largest number of SMEs. Verdant Capital (https:\/\/Verdant-Cap.com) views the two businesses as highly complimentary:&nbsp; Baxi simplifies and integrates online and offline payments for SMEs and merchants in Nigeria through its omni-channel distribution network; MFS Africa simplifies cross-border payments, integrating payments via one hub.&nbsp;The transaction further extends Verdant Capital&rsquo;s track-record of advising on transactions shaping the fintech sector in Africa.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>The sale of Baxi is Verdant Capital&rsquo;s fifth successful fintech transaction of the year, having advised Retail Capital, a leading tech-enabled SME-financier in South Africa on a USD 10 million capital raise; Zeepay, a leading pan-African digital remittance and mobile payments business on its USD 8 million Series-A and on its acquisition of Mangwee in Zambia; and Tugende, a leading tech-enabled SME-financier in East Africa on its USD 10 million Series-A. &nbsp;The transactions cover West, East and South Africa. &nbsp;In part because of its successful track-record in transactions in the fintech sector, as well as because of its leading private equity franchise, Verdant Capital was named the best independent advisor of the year, pan-Africa, by Africa Global Funds, for the second year running in October 2021.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Founded in 2014 by Degbola Abudu and Folu Majekodunmi, Baxi is one of Nigeria&rsquo;s largest independent SME-focused electronic payment networks. Baxi provides a comprehensive range of services to the last mile including cash-in\/cash-out, account opening, money transfer and bill payment. Through its network of more than 90,000 agents, Baxi processed over USD 1 billion in transactions in the first nine months of 2021. &nbsp;Following the close of the transaction, MFS Africa plans to build Baxi into a key node on its digital payment network, allowing customers to make regional and global payments to and from Nigeria. MFS Africa also intends to expand Baxi&rsquo;s proposition for offline SMEs to select markets within MFS Africa&rsquo;s footprint of 320 million mobile wallets across more than 35 African countries.<\/p>\n<p>Strong agent networks are the crucial interface for fintechs to reach Nigeria&rsquo;s circa 100 million financially unserved or underserved population. Supporting and nurturing SMEs is crucial to Nigeria&rsquo;s economy, as they contribute 50% of Gross Domestic Product and provide 76% of jobs <em>(source:&nbsp; Federal Ministry of Information and Culture)<\/em>.&nbsp; With its presence in all 36 Nigerian states, Baxi fills a critical gap by providing informal SMEs and other unbanked Nigerians access to financial services.&nbsp; Verdant Capital is proud to support the leading businesses that support SMEs across the Continent.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The transaction is subject to approval of the Central Bank of Nigeria.<\/p>\n<p><i>Distributed by APO Group on behalf of Verdant Capital.<\/i><\/p>\n<p><strong>About Verdant Capital:<\/strong><br \/>\nVerdant Capital is a specialist investment bank and investment manager operating on a pan-African basis. Verdant Capital has exceptional expertise in high impact sectors including fintech and financial services.<\/p>\n<div class=\"well well-sm\"><b>Media files<\/b><br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-newsroom.com\/files\/large\/a87da32cdd8419f\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.africa-newsroom.com\/files\/large\/a87da32cdd8419f\" alt=\"Verdant Capital\" style=\"max-width:500px\" \/><\/a><br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-newsroom.com\/files\/download\/a87da32cdd8419f\">Download logo<\/a><\/div>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-newsroom.com\/\">Source: Africa Newsroom &#8211; APO<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>MFS Africa is acquiring Baxi to expand its network into Nigeria, Africa&rsquo;s largest economy and perhaps its most fintech dynamic market.&nbsp;Nigeria is also the largest remittance market in Africa representing one-third of intra-Africa remittance flows, and is home to the largest number of SMEs. Verdant Capital (https:\/\/Verdant-Cap.com) views the two businesses as highly complimentary:&nbsp; Baxi [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":206136,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4584],"tags":[4585],"class_list":{"0":"post-206135","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-africa-news-2","8":"tag-apo","9":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/verdant-capital-advises-baxi-a-leading-super-agent-in-nigeria-on-its-sale-to-mfs-africa.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=206135"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206135\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/206136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=206135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=206135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=206135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}