Ian Aruofor

Venture Capitalist

FinFocus Limited, West Africa

Biography

Ian is a venture capitalist with a focus on providing growth investment and debt finance to entrepreneurs and micro/small enterprises in Africa.

He is on a one year sabbatical from PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) to focus exclusively on building his investment platform called FinFocus.

He has ~ 20 years of client advisory and transaction execution experience on globally renowned platforms. A select few of Ian’s deals which illustrate his experience in originating and executing marquee transactions in both developed and emerging markets include:

• Buy-side Advisor to Triarc (Arby’s Restaurants) in its $2.7 billion acquisition of Wendy’s International
• Buyside Financial Advisor in the privatization/ sale of eight (8) successful power generation and distribution asset / company bids in Nigeria
• Exclusive financial advisor to both Lance, Inc. and Snyder’s of Hanover, Inc. in their high profile $1.6 billion merger of equals transaction
• Bookrunning Manager on the $605 million capital markets bridge and $830 million ABL / high yield financing for the sale of Bumble Bee Foods to Lion Capital
• Program and Transaction Manager for the development of a 15,000 hectare Ibom Industrial City and Deepsea Port in West Africa
• Sell-side Advisor to Discovery Foods and Freidman Fleisher & Lowe in its $300 million sale to Windsor Foods

As a Partner at PwC, he led the Deals Advisory platform with responsibility for the development / expansion of PwC’s complex of Corporate Finance, Capital Projects & Infrastructure, Business Recovery Services, Forensic Services and Transaction Services across the West African Market.

As a Vice President at Well Fargo Securities, he executed ~ $15 billion in M&A transactions and raised over $20 billion of debt financing in a Lead Arranger / Book Runner role in the U.S. Market.
As KPMG and Arthur Andersen, he delivered strategy and business operations consulting advice to businesses in the West African Market.

Ian holds an MBA from Goizueta Business School, Emory University (Atlanta) and a B.Sc. Economics from the University of Ibadan.