Business · Pan-African
Afreximbank puts $975m behind the management buyout that takes Oryx Energies into African hands
Chief executive Moussa Diao and trading head Hervé Bouvet are buying the Geneva-based fuel trader and distributor from founder Jean-Claude Gandur. Afreximbank is sole lender on a deal reported at about $1bn, as importers look for supply security in a fuel-price shock.
LAGOS — The African Export-Import Bank has disbursed a US$975 million facility to part-finance the management buyout of Oryx Energies SA, the holding company of the fuel trader Addax Energy, bringing one of the largest independent suppliers of petroleum products in Africa under majority African ownership for the first time, the Cairo-based lender said on Wednesday.
A team led by chief executive Moussa Diao, who is Senegalese, is buying the company from its founder, Jean-Claude Gandur, Reuters reported via CNBC Africa. Business Insider Africa, citing Bloomberg, said Diao and trading manager Hervé Bouvet were acquiring a majority stake in a deal valued at about $1 billion. Afreximbank acted as sole lender, facility agent, security trustee and escrow agent, but did not give the total value.
“This transaction advances Afreximbank’s mandate to drive the structural transformation of African economies,” said Afreximbank president George Elombi, describing the deal as securing “a strategic platform to deepen Africa’s energy industrial ecosystem”. Diao said the buyout reflected “the strength of experienced African leadership” and that the company’s ambition “remains to strengthen our activities in energy trading and infrastructure development across Africa”.
What changes hands
Oryx imports, stores and distributes petrol, diesel, liquefied petroleum gas, lubricants and marine fuels. According to company figures cited by Business Insider Africa, it operates in more than 30 African countries, employs more than 1,800 people and runs more than 410 service stations, 890,000 cubic metres of storage and 11 key terminals, with a West African footprint that includes Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire, Benin, Togo, Mali, Burkina Faso, Sierra Leone, Guinea and Mauritania. Reuters noted that the company announced separate deals earlier this month to sell its businesses in Tanzania.
The management bid was not the only one. The Africa Report had earlier reported that the American-Burkinabé financier Simon Tiemtoré sought to buy Oryx through Lilium Capital, Business Insider Africa said; those talks collapsed.
Why now
Reuters linked the deal to a wider push for energy security as fuel prices climb with conflict in the Middle East, a shock that is feeding through to African inflation and interest rates; Namibia raised its repo rate this week, citing fuel costs. Afreximbank framed the financing as part of its wider support for upstream production and refining.
AB24’s energy desk reading: the bank is backing a distribution and trading network rather than a refinery, betting that control of import terminals and retail sites matters as much as new refining capacity. With Afreximbank as the only lender, the deal also concentrates the bank’s exposure to downstream fuel margins at a volatile moment.
Sources: Afreximbank, 28 Oct 2026; Reuters via CNBC Africa, 28 Oct 2026; Business Insider Africa, 11 Oct 2026.
— AB24 · Lagos