AXIAN Group, the telecommunications and energy company run by Malagasy tycoon Hassanein Hiridjee, has signed a financing deal with Dutch development bank FMO for a 50-megawatt solar plant in northern Ivory Coast.
FMO will lend up to €55.5 million ($62.3 million) to Kong Solaire SAS, the company building the plant near the town of Kong, the partners said on Oct. 20. The 20-year loans cover all of the project’s long-term financing. AXIAN signed the agreement alongside Ivorian developer Africa Via and InfraCo, the project development arm of the Private Infrastructure Development Group, a group funded by several governments to back infrastructure in developing countries.
FMO’s disclosure documents show the money is split into two senior secured loans: €50.5 million ($56.7 million) for the solar plant and €4.5 million ($5.1 million) with a shorter term for the power lines that will link it to the grid. The transmission assets will be handed to the Ivorian government once they are built. The partners said the loan terms were adapted from standard project-finance structures to suit West African markets, without giving details.
AXIAN’s stake in the plant
Africa Via owns 51% of Kong Solaire and InfraCo holds the other 49%. AXIAN owns 55% of Africa Via, giving Hiridjee’s group an indirect stake of about 28% in the project. Africa Via’s founders hold about 23%.
Construction is already under way and is expected to take about 18 months, with the plant due to start operating in 2028. It is designed to produce about 96 gigawatt-hours of electricity a year, enough to supply roughly 240,000 people, and to avoid about 54,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually. The power will be sold to state utility CI-Energies under a 25-year purchase agreement, and the plant will run under a 25-year concession from the government.
“Kong Solaire reflects Côte d’Ivoire’s ambitious renewable energy agenda, driven by the country’s authorities,” said Benjamin Memmi, chief executive officer of AXIAN’s energy division. “With an installed capacity of 50MWp, the project will help diversify the national energy mix,” he said.
Marnix Monsfort, FMO’s director of energy, said: “We are proud to support Kong Solaire, one of Côte d’Ivoire’s first privately developed utility-scale solar projects.” It is the Dutch lender’s second solar investment in the country, which aims to generate 45% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2030.
Minkaila Salami, chief executive of Africa Via, said: “Kong Solaire is the result of work begun with the Ivorian State in 2020.”
Hiridjee’s expanding energy business
AXIAN’s energy division operates in eight African countries through units including NEA, WeLight, CGHV, Jovena and Eydon, and is targeting 2 gigawatts of installed renewable capacity by 2030. The wider group, which also runs mobile phone networks, banks and property businesses, operates in 20 countries.
Hiridjee was born in Antananarivo, Madagascar’s capital, and studied at ESCP Business School in Paris before working in French finance. He returned home in 1997 to join Hirimix, a family business founded by his uncles, and renamed it AXIAN in 2015. Under his leadership the group has expanded from the Indian Ocean islands into mainland Africa, buying into mobile operators in Tanzania and Togo and partnering with French billionaire Xavier Niel in Senegal.
He joined the board of Jumia Technologies, the Nasdaq-listed African online retailer, in June. AXIAN later invested in the company’s $50 million capital raise alongside the International Finance Corp., the World Bank’s private-sector arm.