South African mobile distributor Allied Mobile Africa has announced a strategic finance and partnership agreement with the Public Investment Corporation (PIC) for debt funding facility of $55 million.

Allied Mobile offers a full range of distribution services across sub-saharan Africa, including supply chain, logistics and white-label retail operations. As its name implies the PIC is an investment corporation run by the South African government.

The stated purpose of the funding is to help Allied to expand both within SA and across the rest of Africa, including Mozambique, Namibia, Zambia, Uganda, Rwanda, DRC, Angola, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Swaziland, Botswana and Kenya.

“Since these countries are at different economic and technological stages in the development cycle, Allied has to approach these markets with a tailored product offering and a strategy to address specific local needs,” said the Allied Group’s CEO Jacqueline Cole-Courtney.

“Allied’s objective is to be present in every country in Africa and the recent funding from the PIC will assist us in achieving this. Our geographical expansion program is being conducted in a very cost-effective and efficient manner, as the core operations are run from Allied’s existing Sub-Saharan offices which include eight major hubs and four repair centres located throughout Sub-Saharan Africa, with certain central core functions located in a centralised offshore office, which eliminates the need to duplicate functions.”

“Communications remains an important element for the economic growth of any country,” said Dr. Daniel Matjila, CEO of the PIC. “We are, therefore, happy to provide funding that seeks to unlock economic potential of countries in which Allied Mobile Africa operates. Our funding supports our objective of investing towards development here in South Africa and the rest of the African continent.”