Private equity mezzanine group Vantage Capital has invested R85 million in TrenStar, a South African-based returnable packaging company.

The funds will be applied to expansion and replacement capital and to introduce black empowerment ownership. Party to the deal is RMB Private Bank (a division of FirstRand Bank Limited), which has provided R50 million in senior debt, raising the total funds committed to the transaction to R135 million. Vantage and RMB were introduced to TrenStar by Fairbridge Capital, who was the debt arranger in the transaction.

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TrenStar partners a German manufacturer of luxury motor vehicles in the design, manufacturing and management of returnable packing in Rosslyn, Pretoria.

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MUCH has been written about the rise of the BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India and China) and the shift in economic power eastward as Asia outruns the rest of the world. But the surprising success story of the past decade lies elsewhere. An analysis by The Economist finds that over the ten years to 2010, no fewer than six of the world’s ten fastest-growing economies were in sub-Saharan Africa.

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