Helios’ $297m CAB Payments Bid Faces East African Competition Review
Africa · Eastern
Key Facts
—The bid. A Helios-led consortium offered US$1.15 per share, valuing CAB Payments at roughly US$297 million (£221 million).
—The regulator. The East African Community Competition Authority (EACCA) launched a formal merger inquiry in 2026.
—Helios’ stake. The private equity firm already controlled 45.11% of CAB Payments before the offer.
—Board opposition. CAB Payments’ board rejected the offer as “highly opportunistic” and urged shareholders to take no action.
—Rival bidder. US-based StoneX Group tabled a competing £241 million bid, which Helios blocked using its controlling position.
East Africa’s competition authority has opened a formal inquiry into the CAB Payments bid by Helios Investment Partners, a US$297 million takeover that could hand a single private equity group outsized control over the region’s cross-border payment and foreign exchange infrastructure.
What the CAB Payments bid entails
On 2 March 2026, a Helios-led consortium announced a firm intention to acquire CAB Payments Holdings plc, a London-listed specialist in cross-border payments and foreign exchange for frontier markets. The cash-and-partial-share offer priced each share at US$1.15, valuing the company at approximately US$297 million (£221 million) on a fully diluted basis.
The consortium is using a special-purpose vehicle called Mara BidCo Ltd, backed by Helios Investment Partners, Helios Fairfax Partners Corp, and several Helios-managed funds. Helios already owned 45.11% of CAB Payments through its Fund III, and by early February 2026 it had secured irrevocable undertakings and letters of intent covering roughly 52.5% of the issued share capital.
CAB Payments’ board swiftly rejected the offer, calling it “highly opportunistic” and arguing it “fundamentally undervalues” the business. The board’s resistance opened the door to a competing bid from US-based StoneX Group, which tabled a £241 million offer in March 2026, only to see Helios block it using its controlling shareholder position.
Why East Africa’s watchdog stepped in
The East African Community Competition Authority (EACCA) issued Merger Inquiry Notice No. 11 of 2026 under the EAC Competition Act of 2006 and the region’s 2025 merger regulations. The notice makes clear that the authority will examine whether Mara BidCo’s acquisition of sole control over CAB Payments could substantially lessen competition in the regional payments and foreign exchange market.
The inquiry is significant because CAB Payments, though listed in London, derives much of its business from African and frontier-market clients. The EACCA explicitly noted it will consider “broader public interest concerns” across member states, a mandate that goes beyond narrow competition analysis to encompass financial stability and sovereign access to hard-currency liquidity.
The regulator has invited submissions from interested parties and named its Deputy Registrar for Mergers and Acquisitions, Mr. Vincent Okoth, as the contact point. The procedural step signals that African regulators are increasingly willing to assert jurisdiction over offshore-listed assets when those assets function as critical infrastructure for the continent’s economies.
Helios’ deep footprint in African financial infrastructure
Helios Investment Partners is a UK-based private equity firm managing around US$3 billion, with a two-decade track record of buying into Africa’s financial and digital plumbing. Its portfolio reveals a consistent strategy of acquiring and integrating core infrastructure assets across the continent.
In Kenya alone, Helios invested US$178.7 million for a 24.99% stake in Equity Bank in December 2007, exiting in August 2015. In June 2016, it acquired a 60% shareholding in Telkom Kenya through Jamhuri Holdings Ltd, later selling that stake back to the Kenyan government in the 2022/23 financial year for approximately KES 6.09 billion (roughly US$50 million).
In December 2022, it bought a majority stake in IXAfrica, a developer of hyperscale-ready data centres in Nairobi.
Beyond Kenya, Helios holds a 52% majority stake in Interswitch Limited, the pan-African digital payments and switching company headquartered in Lagos. It also controls Helios Towers Ltd, the telecom tower operator that raised US$1.45 billion in its London IPO.
Taken together, these assets give Helios a presence across domestic transaction platforms, telecom infrastructure, data centres, and now—potentially—the cross-border FX and payment rails that sit on top of them.
The StoneX rivalry and the battle for payment sovereignty
StoneX Group’s entry into the contest turned the CAB Payments bid into a proxy fight over who controls Africa’s hard-currency payment channels. StoneX, a US-based financial services firm with a growing emerging-markets FX business, valued CAB at £241 million—slightly above Helios’ offer—but could not overcome Helios’ pre-existing 45.11% stake and its lock on shareholder commitments exceeding 50%.
The episode illustrates how Africa-focused capital, anchored in London but deeply embedded in the continent’s infrastructure, can outmanoeuvre a US player for control of a strategic payments hub. It also raises questions about whether minority shareholders are being denied a fair auction process in favour of a take-private that consolidates control in a single private equity platform.
For African governments and central banks, the stakes go beyond shareholder value. CAB Payments is one of a limited number of non-bank providers capable of handling large-scale FX and settlement for African currencies and hard-currency flows.
Whoever controls it gains significant use over the channels through which sovereigns, development finance institutions, and local commercial banks access global dollar and sterling liquidity.
The great-power dimension: who intermediates Africa’s flows?
The CAB Payments bid fits into a broader pattern that Africa: The New Scramble tracks closely: the contest among Western, Chinese, and Gulf capital to own the infrastructure that moves money, data, and goods across the continent. In payments and FX, this translates into competing ecosystems—dollar-and-SWIFT-based systems, China-linked RMB settlement networks, and Gulf sovereign-wealth-backed financial nodes.
CAB Payments occupies a unique position as a Western-regulated entity—subject to the UK Takeover Code and Bank of England oversight—that nonetheless derives most of its business from African and frontier markets. Controlling it gives Helios a bridge between these systems and strategic use in negotiations with international banks, development finance institutions, and sovereign clients.
The EACCA’s inquiry can be read as an African counterpart to the national-security reviews that Western regulators now routinely apply to foreign acquisitions of critical digital platforms. The concern is less about espionage and more about financial sovereignty: whether a single private equity platform could gain disproportionate gatekeeping power over both domestic and cross-border transaction flows, raising barriers for new fintech entrants and concentrating risk in one privately held group.
What to watch next in the CAB Payments bid
The EACCA’s merger inquiry will proceed under Part IV of the EAC Competition Act, examining both the competition effects and the broader public interest implications of the deal. The authority has not set a public deadline, but the procedural notice suggests a thorough review is underway.
For investors, the key question is whether the EACCA imposes conditions—or potentially blocks the acquisition—on grounds that vertical integration across Helios’ payment infrastructure creates an unacceptable concentration of market power. For African policymakers, the case is a test of whether regional competition authorities can effectively regulate deals structured in London but whose effects are felt most acutely in Nairobi, Lagos, and other African financial centres.
The outcome will shape not just the future of CAB Payments but the broader landscape for private equity control of Africa’s financial arteries. As the continent’s trade volumes grow and its digital economy deepens, the question of who owns the pipes that move money across borders will only become more urgent.
Connected Coverage
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the CAB Payments bid and who is making it?
A consortium led by Helios Investment Partners, using a special-purpose vehicle called Mara BidCo Ltd, has offered US$1.15 per share for CAB Payments Holdings plc, an LSE-listed cross-border payments and FX firm. The all-cash-and-partial-share offer values the company at approximately US$297 million (£221 million).
Helios already owned 45.11% of CAB Payments before launching the bid and intends to take the company private if the acquisition succeeds.
Why is the East African Community reviewing a London-listed deal?
Although CAB Payments is listed on the London Stock Exchange, its core business involves processing cross-border payments and foreign exchange for African governments, central banks, and financial institutions. The East African Community Competition Authority has jurisdiction because the transaction could substantially lessen competition in the regional payments and FX market and raises public interest concerns for EAC member states.
What happened to the rival bid from StoneX Group?
US-based StoneX Group tabled a competing bid in March 2026 that valued CAB Payments at approximately £241 million. However, Helios used its pre-existing 45.11% stake and shareholder commitments covering more than half the share register to block the StoneX offer, effectively preventing a competitive auction and leaving only the Helios consortium’s bid on the table.
Sources
LatAm Markets: Live Signals → — real-time movers, turnover leaders and FX across Latin America.
Read More from The Rio Times