Prime Highlights
- ARM-Harith’s chief executive called the first close an inflection point, combining local and hard-currency capital within a single platform.
- FSDAi’s investment chief said the barrier to pension fund participation was never capital, but the absence of suitably structured investment products.
Key Facts
- ARM-Harith is a pan-African private equity fund manager focused on sustainable energy and infrastructure across Sub-Saharan Africa.
- The fund’s first close received $20 million in catalytic capital from FSD Africa Investments and the African Development Bank.
Background
ARM-Harith Infrastructure Investments Limited has announced the first close of its climate transition successor fund at approximately $76 million, targeting a final close of $200 million.
The pan-African private equity fund manager describes the fund as the first integrated multi-currency blended finance platform built specifically for African institutional investors. It combines United States dollar and local currency investments within a single infrastructure equity fund structure, addressing a longstanding mismatch between foreign currency-denominated investment vehicles and the local currency revenues generated by African infrastructure assets.
The structure aims to reduce currency risks at the project level while enabling greater participation from domestic institutional investors, particularly pension funds, without excluding international investors seeking dollar-denominated exposure.
The first close received $20 million in catalytic capital from FSD Africa Investments and the African Development Bank through its Sustainable Energy Fund for Africa. ARM-Harith said the funding will help de-risk investments for pension funds and other institutional investors while scaling domestic capital mobilisation across Sub-Saharan Africa.
ARM-Harith chief executive Rachel More-Oshodi said the first close marked both an achievement and an inflection point for the firm, building on its earlier success in mobilising domestic institutional capital into infrastructure equity by bringing local and hard-currency investments together within a single platform.
FSDAi Chief Investment Officer Anne-Marie Chidzero said the constraint had never been a lack of capital but the absence of investment products structured around pension funds’ liability-matching needs, including tenure, risk allocation and currency alignment.
ARM-Harith’s predecessor fund financed over 700 megawatts of installed power capacity, created around 22,500 jobs, and helped avoid an estimated 2.6 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions annually across Africa.
