By Kevin Kuria
Senior associate
Performance so far – A Resilient Market
Following confirmation of the first case of coronavirus infection in East Africa, the expectation has been a slow-down in deal making activity in the region. However, the market has remained resilient with the number of disclosed transactions in East Africa in 2020, thus far, maintaining pace with that of previous years. As at the end of April, the market had recorded 31 corporate transactions valued at c. USD 360 million straddling across private equity and trade player M&A. This in comparison with the 26 and 27 disclosed corporate transactions valued at c. USD 847 million and c. USD 137 million at the same time in 2019 and 2018 respectively. We attribute this to the fact that a large proportion of deals in the region tend to take more than 12 months from initiation to completion and crucially investor confidence in the long term superior returns available from investment in the region.