WASHINGTON/DOUALA (CI Africa) — (Updating on August 10, 2019 add interviews with US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross; Stanley Enow; and Jing & Partners Managing Partner, Paul Jing including comments from Platinum Power and Brookstone Partners) — Aliaune “Akon” Thiam and Stanley Enow — the American and West African international hip-hop stars — are now joining forces to promote major African energy projects such as a 350 MW hydro-electric power plant in the strategically vital West-Central African nation of Cameroon.
[Aliaune “Akon” Thiam interviewed by Capitol Intelligence/CI Africa using CI Glass during the US-Africa Leaders Summit in Washington, DC on August 4, 2014.]
The Sengalese-born American hip-hop icon, Akon has become one the major players in the African solar power industry by using his for-profit Africa Lighting group as the marketing arm for mainland Chinese solar energy manufacturers and developers.
On his part, Stanley Enow says he wants to use his popularity after being awarded by Viacom (NASDAQ: VIA.B) unit MTV‘s Best New Act in Africa to bring desperately needed electricity generation to his native Cameroon.
Separately, Cameroonian hip hop artist and Motherland Empire co-founder Stanley Enow first traveled to Washington, DC to attend the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation Annual Legislative Conference (CBCFALC) and its Phoenix Awards Dinner hosted by then President Barack Obama and First Lady Michele Obama on September 17-19, 2015.
[Cameroon Afro Hip Hop star Stanley Enow speaks with Capitol Intelligence/CI Africa using CI Glass on using hip hop to create new opportunities and jobs in Cameroon and Africa. June 25, 2019: Douala, Cameroon]
Akon said that his for-profit venture Akon Lighting Africa is already supplying more than 250,000 residents in rural areas with solar generated electricity and expects to expand Lighting African to the Republic of Congo, Kenya and Cote D’Ivoire.
Lighting Africa already generates over USD 20m in revenues and that figure is expected to soon rise to circa USD 100m, according to sources familiar with the company.
Akon told Capitol Intelligence Group that his group has a USD 1bn credit line for African nations to build-out electricity capacity through solar, mini-grid and now hydroelectric power plants.
Akon said he was inspired to bringing much needed energy to the poorest areas in the world due to his childhood experience carrying water as a young child in Senegal.
Akon said he has been holding talks with RLJ, the private equity fund set-up by Robert Johnson, who along with his wife Sheila Johnson, founded and sold Black Entertainment Television to Viacom for USD 2.4bn. RLJ works under the Carlyle Group co-founded by David Rubenstein and whose fund is a significant investor in Africa along with Stephen Schwarzman‘s Blackstone.
US agencies such as the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) and the International Finance Corporation (IFC) are currently working on two 400 megawatt hydro-power plants to be built in Cameroon, the West-Central African nation under sporadic attacks by ISIS ally Boko Haram and growing separatist unrest by the country’s English speaking minority.
[World Bank President David Malpass and International Finance Corporation (IFC) CEO Phillipe Le Houreau filmed by Capitol Intelligence using CI Glass speaking at International Finance Corporation (IFC) and Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) forum The Power of Partnerships during the IMF World Bank Spring Meetings in Washington, DC. April 12, 2019]
Enow has already meet officials at OPIC and said he would like to use all of his influence to help bring electricity to his native Cameroon and Africa in general.
Enow was also able to meet and speak with US Congressman Andre Carson (D-IN) who headed up the HipHop And Politics panel at the Congressional Black Caucus convention.
At the CBCF event, Mr. Enow was also able to meet and speak with CBCF Chair R. Donahue Peebles; CBCF co-chairs Rep. Terri Sewell (D-Al) and Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY); House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD) and even Democratic presidential candidate, former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley.
The proposed plant, likely to be built by (General Electric NYSE:GE) combined with another planned 400 megawatt hydro-electric plant by Electricite de France (EDF) not only meets the country’s immediate energy needs of the Central/West African nation but can also add another 2% GDP growth to a country already growing by 5-to-6 percent a year, Cameroon Finance Minister Alamine Ousmane Mey said.
[Cameroon Economy Minister Alamine Ousmane Mey speaks to Capitol Intelligence/CI Africa using CI Glass on OPIC-backed and Actis planned 350 MW hydropower plant during IMF World Bank Spring Meetings in Washington, DC on April 13, 2019.]
In an interview with Capitol Intelligence/CI Africa during the World Bank Springs meeting in Washington, DC, Minister Mey said that Cameroon currently produces some 1,200 megawatts of power and that the country needs to produce 2,000 megawatts to sustain economic growth and lower the over-all cost of power production.
The GE power plant is a priceless opportunity for Enow and Akon to join forces to bring stability to Cameroon.
“The project is one the best means to meet the US government aims in its billion dollar Power Africa and at the same time bring political and economic stability to Cameroon,” a banker familiar with the project said.
The banker noted that Cameroon first faced the challenge of terrorist threat by the Boko Haram and is now in near civil war as the English speaking minority of Cameroon are seeking to create an independent state in rebellion to perceived political and economic discrimination by the French-speaking majority.
The key person behind EDF/IFC deal and the deal maker for any OPIC-backed Hydro deal will with no doubt be Paul Jing, the founder and managing partner of Douala-based law firm Jing & Partners.
[Jing & Partners Managing Partner Paul T. Jing (Harvard LLM) speaks to Capitol Intelligence/CI Africa using CI Glass on proposed 350 megwatts hydro power plants backed by US Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) with GE and Atlas Mara in his offices in Douala, Cameroon. June 24, 2019]
Giving the green light for the 355 MW project is now up to Actis, the London-based private-equity firm that owns Cameroon utility ENEO Cameroon S.A., formerly known as Societe Nationale d’Electricite (SONEL), and under the direct oversight of Actis’s senior partner, Tobjorn Caesar.
It now up to Sonel to agree to a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with any new operator as the privately owned group has already been provided with all the necessary feasibility and environmental impact studies by Rabat, Morocco-based Power Platinum, once a portfolio company of New York-based Brookstone Partners, a private equity concern.
Platinum Power CEO Omar Belmamoun — in an interview with Capitol Intelligence — said it is going ahead the proposed Cameroon hydro project notwithstanding ongoing litigation with its shareholder, New York City private equity concern, Brookstone Partners.
“We are moving forward with our project in a timely manner,” Omar Belmamoun said.
When asked whether Platinum Power was willing to sell their interest in the hydro project to third party, Belmamoun stated:
“Platinum Power’s policy is to form strategic partnerships for its portfolio of projects. We just signed an agreement last week in Beijing with the infrastructure giant CFEHC (CCCC Group) regarding a minority investment of this group in our project: Ahencal Cascade (108 MW) in Morocco. “
He also said that Platinum Power formed a joint venture company, Sarine Engineering, with Fribourg, Switzerland-based hydro power specialist Groupe E in “order to develop in house expertise regarding the operations and maintenance of hydro power projects. “
However, Belamamoun did not comment on whether China’s state-owned operator CFHEC could block any US government backed investment in a Platinum Power related project.
Financial and legal sources said they do not believe that Platinum Power is able to focus on any new project outside of Morocco with the bitter and highly personal legal battles in Casablanca and New York between Belmamoun and Brookstone Partners’ Principal, Michael Toporek.
According to Belmamoun: “Michael Toporek, misappropriated assets from Platinum Power and was revoked from the board during the [EGM] for breach of trust in February 2019. [he] started fundraising in the US for Soluna, a bitcoin mining project in Morocco even though bitcoin is strictly banned by the Moroccan authorities.”
Meanwhile, Brookstone insiders claim their relationship failed because he (Belamamoun) is a failed CEO. He has never met a budget or a (performance) milestone.”
“I guess that the management of SONEL [ENEO]has been distracted to say the least,” one source said.
[Actis Senior Partner Tobjorn Caesar speaks with Capitol Intelligence/CI Africa using Google on Cameeron, OPIC and private sector approach for developing market investing at IFC EMPEA Global Private Equity Conference in Washington, DC. May 17, 2017]
Another major obstacle for the funding of the US-backed Cameroonian hydro-plant is the fierce turf war between the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) over who will manage the US government’s planned USD 7bn investment in the sub-Saharan African power sector as part of White House mandated and US Congress approved Power Africa program.
Private sector companies, leading members of the US Congress and multilaterals such as IFC, African Development Bank all agree that OPIC is much better equipped to handle Power Africa deals than the scandal prone USAID.
“OPIC knows how to structure a deal under best practices while US AID likes to work on a relationship basis and does not understand the need for return on investment on infrastructure projects,” one senior investment banker who has worked with both OPIC and the USAID.
Under US Power Africa program, US AID is limited to a mere USD 285m in technical grants; OPIC has USD 1.5bn available for financing and insuring energy projects in Africa; and the US Export-Import Bank (EXIM) has up to USD 5bn in support of US exports in development of energy projects across sub-Saharan Africa.
[Mara Group Founder and CEO Ashish Thakkar speaks with Capitol Intelligence/CI Africa using CI Glass at GE’s AfricaAscending conference during the United States-Africa Leaders Summit in Washington, DC in August, 2014.]
Notwithstanding the OPIC-USAID turf war, the timing for the Cameroonian hydro plant could not be better as West African infrastructure projects are now priority investment targets both for GE with its takeover of France’s Alstom Energy and for the Dubai-based Mara Group investment fund headed by Ashish Thakkar.
In fact, the Mara Group is currently in the process of launching a USD 1bn Pan-African infrastructure fund in partnership with GE, GE and Mara sources told Capitol Intelligence Group.
One source said that hydro-power projects are of special interest to both GE and Mara as GE will be able to exploit Alstom’s industry expertise in building hydro-power plants in Europe and Africa.
The investment bank best positioned to execute arguably the largest private sector hydro-power project in sub-Saharan African is New York City-based Citigroup, INC (NYSE: C) lead by CEO Michael L. Corbat.
Mara Group, through its Atlas Merchant Capital pan-African banking venture headed by former Barclay’s Bank head Bob Diamond, is also ideally positioned to be a co-sponsor on any pan-African project financing deals.
[Atlas Merchant Capital Founder Bob Diamond speaks to Capitol Intelligence/CI Africa using CI Glass at the IFC Ai africainvestor CEO Investment Summit at IMF World Bank annual meeting in Washington, DC. October 9, 2014]
Bob Diamond along with Atlas Mara major shareholder, Canada’s Fairfax Africa, are close to receiving OPIC funds to takeover Union Bank of Nigeria, one of Nigeria’s largest commercial banks.
Earlier this summer, OPIC launched Connect Africa, an initiative to improve connectivity in Africa by investing USD 1bn in physical infrastructure, technology, and value chains. OPIC has just completed a USD 100m financing guarantee for Beirut, Lebanon-based Africell Holding, a USD 2bn plus pan-African mobile phone carrier owned by Ziad Dalloul with operations in Sierra Leon, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
While Diamond and Thakkar may be in pole position to project finance the new OPIC-backed hydro plant, financial sources told Capitol Intelligence not to exclude Nigeria’s leading businessman,Tony Elumelu, from the bidding.
Heirs Holding Chaiman Elemelu told Capitol Intelligence in a previous interview that he is working the GE as a supplier for a number electrification projects in Nigeria.
[Heirs Holding Chairman Tony Elumelu speaks with Capitol Intelligence/CI Africa using CI Glass at Senate Foreign Affairs Committee. March 26, 2014]
A further complication, or possible new opportunity, for the 350 MW Cameroon hydro project are reports and rumors among lawyers and bankers that Actis has put up its majority stake in ENEO up for sale.
Actis’ Caeser declined to comment when contacted by Capitol Intelligence.
Jing & Partners’ Paul Jing noted that new Cameroon hydro plants would be able to export and resell electrical power to Nigeria.
Paul Jing, a Harvard Law School graduate, has pioneered a ground breaking innovation in global M&A: Combining an M&A boutique law firm with the balance sheet of an investment bank.
“We realized that there was not enough M&A deals in Cameroon to support an M&A law firm so we added investment banking,” Jing said, adding that Jing & Partners acts as the West African investment baking arm of South Africa’s Standard Bank, Paris-based Societe Generale; and New York’s Citigroup.
US President Donald Trump has mandated OPIC, and at the same time boosted its investment war chest to USD 60bn, as a concrete tool to counterbalance aggressive Chinese infrastructure investment on the African continent.
In an interview with Capitol Intelligence at a Made in America summit hosted in the White House, US Commerce Secretary and OPIC Chairman, Wilbur Ross, said he is fully behind this news service’s efforts to bring transformational US private sector investment to strategic countries such as Cameroon.
[US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross speaks to Capitol Intelligence/CI Africa on Overseas Private Sector Investment Corporation planned near USD 1bn investment in hydro-power plant in Cameroon at Made in America Summit at the White House. July 15, 2019]
It is now America’s hip-hop icon, Akon, and the king of Afro hip-hop, Stanley Enow, who find themselves at the center of the Great Game between the USA and China to win over the hearts and minds of Africa and geo-political influence.
By PK Semler in Washington, DC and Douala, Cameroon, and Sara Tomasoni in Casablanca and Milan. For more information please call +1-202-549-3399 or email: pks@capitolintelgroup.com.
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