Vantage Risk Capital is the largest independent provider of mezzanine risk capital to medium-sized South African businesses seeking to either expand their operations or change the structure of their ownership. Vantage Risk Capital is affiliated to Vantage Capital Group, an independent, majority black-owned and managed business.  As a result, Vantage Risk Capital is not aligned to any single bank or fund manager. Vantage Risk Capital’s independence allows it to structure the best possible financial solutions for its corporate clients spanning a broad range of debt and equity instruments.

In structuring its deals, Vantage Risk Capital can be more flexible than many other capital providers in the South African marketplace. Unlike traditional bank lending, it is not focused primarily on the assets and on the available security underpinning a transaction. An in-depth understanding of cash flows drives its decision-making. This allows it to provide significantly more debt to a given transaction than traditional bank lending criteria would allow.

Unlike most funds that have a strong equity focus, Vantage Risk Capital seeks to earn most of its return through debt instruments. This makes Vantage Risk Capital a friendly place for management teams seeking to minimize the equity dilution associated with their capital raising activities. Similarly, its debt focus makes it a friendly place for black empowerment consortiums seeking to:

• Maximize their share of the equity in a given transaction; and
• Shorten the time it takes for them to enjoy the full economic benefits of their assets.
  

Most importantly, Vantage Risk Capital is able to invest significant capital in individual transactions being backed by leading South African pension fund and asset managers as well as highly-reputed foreign development finance institutions.

These investors and Vantage Capital Group collectively provided Mezzanine Fund I with total capital commitments of R1,003 million ($125 million), allowing Vantage Risk Capital to build a diverse portfolio of mezzanine assets across a variety of sectors (chemicals, forestry, catering, media and steel recycling).

In March 2012, Vantage Risk Capital closed Mezzanine Fund II, which has a pan-African investment focus (with a 35% allocation to opportunities outside South Africa) and can make investments up to R300 million ($38 million) in a single transaction. R1.9 billion ($230 million) of commitments were secured from fourteen pension funds, three charitable endowments, two development finance institutions and a family office.

Vantage is well-positioned as Africa’s leading mezzanine financier to capitalise on its strong position in the South African mezzanine market, to build a portfolio of income generating mezzanine assets in South Africa and in the rest of Africa.