One group. Two continents. Every stage of capital.

What the network changes for a client

Most advisory firms of Caban's size operate from one country, with one balance sheet and one set of investor relationships. A client engaging that firm gets exactly what it can reach.

The practical consequence of the group structure is that a mandate originating in Johannesburg can be taken to London without a handover, and a UK investor can be brought into a South African transaction without an intermediary taking a second fee. The firm also invests its own capital, which means a Caban recommendation is frequently one the firm has taken itself.

Three things follow from that, and they are the reasons the structure exists rather than the structure being an accident of history.

Reach: two continents, one process

Capital for African growth businesses is still substantially raised offshore. A firm with a London presence and a South African desk can run a single process across both, rather than handing a client to a correspondent firm at the border and losing continuity, context and a share of the fee.

For a business raising growth capital, that widens the funder set from the domestic market to the UK and European investor base as well — which matters more than it sounds, because as our Academy lesson on why African capital markets work differently sets out, the size of the addressable funder population is one of the main constraints on what terms a business can command.

Depth: capital, advice and delivery in one place

The group spans the full path a growing business actually travels: advisory to structure the transaction, fund capital where the mandate fits, and a services panel to build the operational capability the business needs to be fundable in the first place.

A business is frequently not investment-ready at first contact — the accounts are not investor-grade, the cap table is untidy, the contracts are undocumented. Those are fixable problems, but only if someone can fix them. The services network exists so that the answer to "you are not ready yet" is a plan rather than a rejection.

Continuity: the same people, after the transaction

Advisory relationships usually end at completion. Because the group also invests, holds board seats and runs a foundation, Caban's involvement with a business commonly continues well past the closing date. That is a genuine difference in incentive: a firm that will still be a shareholder in three years structures a transaction differently from one that will have invoiced and left.

The professional services network

Alongside the group entities, Caban maintains a vetted panel of professional service providers — finance, legal, marketing and operations specialists who work with portfolio businesses on the same terms the firm does.

Every Caban portfolio business draws on the same panel our own companies use: financial managers who build investor-grade accounts, legal teams who clean cap tables and structure raises, and growth specialists who help businesses sell. Providers are selected for one quality above all — a willingness to be paid on the same basis we are, which is when the business works.

That alignment is the whole point. A provider paid in cash regardless of outcome has no stake in whether the business succeeds. A provider holding equity has the same interest as the founder and as us, which changes both the quality of the work and the honesty of the advice.

Joining the network

We are always interested in professional services practices that want equity-aligned work with growing African businesses. If you run one, tell us what your practice does and where you work.

Separately, and at a different level, the firm is currently appointing six Corporate Finance Partners across South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Francophone West Africa and Mauritius — principal-level appointments for experienced dealmakers who will originate and lead mandates in their own market. That is a different proposition from the services panel, and it is set out separately.