Helios, Vitol to Acquire Shell’s Downstream Businesses in Africa

Vitol Group has said that it is in exclusive negotiations with Shell Oil Products Africa (Shell) for the potential acquisition of equity in their downstream businesses in 19 countries in Africa, subject to final negotiations and any necessary regulatory and final company approvals. Vitol’s potential acquisition of equity will be in partnership with Helios Investment Partners, a major investment firm focusing on Africa and one of the few independent pan-African private equity investment firms to be founded and managed by Africans.
The scope of the negotiations is Shell’s downstream businesses (Retail, Commercial Fuels, Lubricants, Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG), Bitumen, Aviation and Marine) in Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt (excluding lubricants), Cote d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Togo, Senegal, Mali, Guinea, Cape Verde, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Botswana (excluding LPG), Namibia, Madagascar, Mauritius and La Reunion.
The scope of the business includes 1300 retail sites, retail sales of around 3,500,000 cubic metres, and 1,200,000 cubic metres of terminal storage. There are around 2500 employees currently employed in the various businesses in the 19 countries.
Under the terms of the exclusivity agreement, Shell will not be holding discussions with any other third party other than Vitol and Helios for the time being.
In addition, under the scope of a potential deal between the three companies, it is envisaged that Shell would retain a shareholding and the Shell brand would remain across all marketing businesses, including retail and lubricants. With the exception of Egypt, Shell’s lubricants businesses in all 19 countries would also be in scope.
Further details regarding negotiations, bids and scope is commercially sensitive and confidential at this time.
Helios Investment Partners (HIP) is an Africa-focused private equity firm, founded by Nigerian Partners, with more than $1.2 billion in capital commitments.  HIP pursues a full range of investment types, including business formations, growth equity investments, structured investments in listed entities and large scale leveraged acquisitions across Africa.
Helios' portfolio companies operate in more than 20 countries, and in various industrial sectors, across the African continent. The firm has significant experience in private equity investing across a broad range of industries and investment types - leveraged buyouts, recapitalizations, joint ventures, seed-stage venture capital, restructurings, and strategic public equity investments.
The Vitol Group was founded in 1966 in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Since then the company has grown significantly, to become a major participant in world energy markets and is now the world’s largest independent energy trader.
Its trading portfolio includes crude oil, oil products, LNG, natural gas, coal, power and carbon emissions. Vitol trades with all the major national oil companies, the integrated oil majors and the independent refiners and traders. Globally Vitol trades over 5.5 million barrels of crude oil and products per day. It has been doing business in Africa for more than 40 years.