Highlights 2019
Investments
Tidjane Dème (left) and Cyril Collon, heads of the investment fund Partech Africa.
BI Expands its Network and Focus
Bertelsmann Investments (BI) expanded its portfolio of start-ups and funds to a total of 230
holdings in 2019, with an increasing focus on new growth regions such as Southeast Asia
and Africa. One example is the holding in the Partech Africa fund, which invests in African
technology start-ups. In Europe as well, tech start-ups were the focus of the BI network’s
expansion – as in the investment in Blossom Capital 1, a fund that invests primarily in European
companies from the financial services, cybersecurity and infrastructure sectors.
Education Provider Impresses BBI and the Stock Exchange
Bertelsmann Brazil Investments (BBI) celebrated
the successful IPO of a prominent investment
in 2019: the Brazilian continuing education
company Afya Education successfully debuted
on the New York Nasdaq in July amid a
shower of confetti. The educational provider
specializes in medical education and training
programs, and is the largest of its kind in Brazil
with around 36,000 students. Bertelsmann
Investments holds an indirect stake in the up-and-coming company via a fund investment
with its partner Crescera Investimentos. BBI, in
cooperation with co-shareholders and the Afya
management, has thus successfully entered an
attractive and dynamic market.
With a large advertisement at its building in New York’s Times Square, Nasdaq welcomes
the newcomer Afya.
Bertelsmann Asia Investments Score Record Returns
In 2019, Bertelsmann Asia Investments (BAI) generated more than €200 million in
proceeds from the sale of former holdings, a BAI record. Most of this sum came
from the sale of shares in the live-streaming and short-video platform Bigo. The
platform, in which BAI first invested in 2015, rapidly developed into one of the most
successful video platforms in Southeast Asia, India and the Middle East with the
apps Bigo Live, Likee and IMO. BAI’s shares in the Chinese bike-sharing service
provider Hellobike and the social network Momo were also successfully sold.
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