M&A Deal Summary

Lesaka Acquires Connect Group

On November 1, 2021, Lesaka acquired business services company Connect Group for 4.8B ZAR

Acquisition Highlights
  • This is Lesaka’s 1st transaction in the Business Services sector.
  • This is Lesaka’s largest (disclosed) transaction.
  • This is Lesaka’s 1st transaction in South Africa.

M&A Deal Summary

Date 2021-11-01
Target Connect Group
Sector Business Services
Buyer(s) Lesaka
Deal Type Add-on Acquisition
Deal Value 4.8B ZAR
Advisor(s) Investec (Financial)
ENS Africa (Legal)

Target

Connect Group

Sandton, South Africa
Connect Group is one of the fastest-growing payment solutions providers in Southern Africa, providing services such as bill payment, prepaid value-added services, digitized cash management, merchant lending, and merchant acquiring to nearly 44,000 merchants. The group includes established and highly respected brands such as Kazang, Cash Connect, Capital Connect, and Kazang Connect.

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Buyer(S) 1

Buyer

Lesaka

Johannesburg, South Africa

Category Company
Founded 1997
Sector Information Technology
Employees2,303
Revenue 528M USD (2023)
DESCRIPTION

Lesaka is a Fintech company that utilizes its proprietary banking and payment technologies to deliver superior financial services solutions to merchants (B2B) and consumers (B2C) in Southern Africa. The Company offers cash management solutions, growth capital, card acquiring, bill payment technologies and value-added services to retail merchants as well as banking, lending, and insurance solutions to consumers across Southern Africa. Lesaka was founded in 1997 and is based in Johannesburg, South Africa.


DEAL STATS #
Overall 2 of 5
Sector (Business Services) 1 of 1
Type (Add-on Acquisition) 2 of 4
Country (South Africa) 1 of 4
Year (2021) 1 of 1
Size (of disclosed) 1 of 3
PREVIOUS DEAL
DATE TARGET DEAL TYPE VALUE
2010-10-29 KSNET

Gangnam-gu Seoul, South Korea

KSNET Inc. is a value-added network ("VAN") provider for credit card and banking transaction processing. The Company holds a 20% market share in the credit card VAN business in Korea and is a dominant operator in the electronic payment gateway service for E-commerce businesses.

Buy -
FOLLOWING DEAL
DATE TARGET DEAL TYPE VALUE
2024-02-05 Touchsides

Johannesburg, South Africa

Touchsides is a data analytics, insights, and merchant services company. The business provides platform-as-a-service (PaaS) and software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions to licensed tavern outlets, enabling the measurement of sales activity in real-time, management of stock levels and informing commercial decisions, such as pricing and promotional offers. Touchsides was founded in 2013 and is based in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Buy -