- Africa’s Critical-Minerals Ambition Draws US$1bn Private Equity Plan
Former Gold Fields chief executive Chris Griffith has joined Ghanaian mining veteran Sir Sam Jonah and former Goldman Sachs banker Colin Coleman in an ambitious effort to raise US$1bn for investments in Africa’s critical-minerals industry.
The proposed private equity fund is expected to pursue opportunities in minerals such as copper, cobalt, lithium, nickel, graphite and rare earths commodities that have become strategically important to electric vehicles, renewable-energy infrastructure, advanced electronics and defence manufacturing.
The fundraising remains at an early stage, meaning the US$1bn is a target rather than capital already secured. Its emergence nevertheless illustrates growing investor interest in Africa as the US, Europe and other economies seek alternatives to mineral supply chains dominated by China.
“I was contacted by a private equity team that is starting up,” Mr Griffith said during an Investec Minds online broadcast.
“I’m part of a private equity team now, seeking to raise a billion dollars to invest in African critical minerals.”
Mr Griffith said he was working closely with Mr Coleman, Sir Sam and colleagues in Ghana and South Africa to establish the investment platform.
The combination brings together extensive mining, finance and African market experience. Mr Griffith led Gold Fields until December 2022 and subsequently headed Vedanta’s base-metals business for two years.
Sir Sam is one of Africa’s most experienced mining executives. He previously led Ghana’s Ashanti Goldfields and currently chairs Jonah Capital, a private investment company with interests across mining, agriculture, property and infrastructure.
Mr Coleman is a former Goldman Sachs banker and previously headed the institution’s sub-Saharan African operations.
Their involvement could help the fund address one of the largest obstacles facing African mining projects: the gap between the discovery of a mineral deposit and the mobilisation of sufficient capital to place it into production.
Africa is not short of geological potential. The continent contains a substantial share of the world’s cobalt, manganese, platinum-group metals and other resources needed for the energy transition.
The Democratic Republic of Congo dominates global cobalt production and is a major copper producer. Zambia is seeking to raise copper output significantly, while Zimbabwe has attracted investment into lithium. Namibia, Tanzania, Mozambique, Ghana and several other countries are also developing critical-mineral strategies.
Yet many African projects remain trapped between early exploration and commercial development. They may possess promising geological data but lack the feasibility studies, infrastructure, environmental approvals and management capacity required to secure conventional bank financing.
A specialised private equity vehicle could help fill that financing gap by taking equity positions in promising projects, funding their movement towards production and improving their governance and technical readiness.
But raising US$1bn will require the team to convince institutional investors that Africa’s mineral opportunity outweighs the continent’s well-known risks.
These include unpredictable fiscal regimes, lengthy permitting processes, inadequate power and transport infrastructure, community disputes, political instability and disagreements over how mineral revenues should be shared.
The fund’s success will therefore depend not merely on identifying mineral deposits but on selecting jurisdictions where governments can offer credible regulatory stability and projects can demonstrate responsible environmental and social practices.
The presence of Sir Sam and the reported involvement of professionals in Ghana raises an important question for the country: can Ghana attract part of the proposed capital beyond its traditional gold industry?
Ghana is Africa’s largest gold producer, but its critical-minerals ambitions remain at an earlier stage. The country possesses lithium, manganese, bauxite, iron ore and other mineral resources that could support battery production, aluminium processing and broader industrial development.
However, the policy debate is increasingly shifting from extraction towards domestic processing. President John Mahama has signalled that Ghana intends to prohibit the export of unprocessed mineral ores from 2030, while proposed mining legislation could shorten the duration of mining leases and give the state additional rights in strategically important projects.
These measures are intended to ensure that Ghana captures more value from its mineral resources. But they will also influence how private investors price political and regulatory risk.
A US$1bn Africa-focused fund could provide Ghanaian projects with capital, technical expertise and international connections. The country would still need to demonstrate that its approach to local processing is commercially workable and supported by reliable electricity, transport infrastructure and predictable fiscal terms.
The lesson is that an export ban alone will not create a domestic minerals industry. Processing plants require scale, stable power, access to finance, skilled workers and secure supplies of raw material over several years.
Ghana must therefore decide whether it wants merely to host mines or build a complete industrial ecosystem around its minerals.
The timing of the proposed fund is favourable. Critical minerals have moved from the margins of commodity markets to the centre of economic and national-security policy.
Western governments are looking for ways to reduce their dependence on China, which holds a powerful position in the processing of lithium, cobalt, graphite and rare earths. African governments, meanwhile, are demanding investment that creates employment and processing capacity rather than simply exporting raw ore.
This creates an opportunity for investment funds that can align private returns with national development objectives. It also creates a risk that competition for minerals reproduces the extractive relationships African states are attempting to escape.
The credibility of the new fund will consequently depend on the nature of its eventual investments. Financing mines without supporting local procurement, skills development or processing would increase production but leave the continent’s economic structure largely unchanged.
The venture also represents a return to mining dealmaking for Mr Griffith, who left Gold Fields after the collapse of its proposed US$6.7bn acquisition of Canada’s Yamana Gold.
Mr Griffith has continued to defend the commercial logic of that transaction, arguing that subsequent increases in gold prices and mining-company valuations demonstrated the underlying value he had identified. He has, however, acknowledged that the size and timing of the proposal unsettled Gold Fields shareholders.
His new undertaking will pose a different test. Instead of persuading public-market shareholders to support a single transformational acquisition, he and his partners must convince long-term investors to accept exposure to multiple projects across jurisdictions with varying risk profiles.
The proposed US$1bn fund could become an important new source of mining capital. But its significance will ultimately be determined by whether it can turn Africa’s geological advantage into commercially viable mines—and whether African economies retain more of the resulting value.
For Ghana and the rest of the continent, attracting the money is only the first challenge. The deeper test is ensuring that the next critical-minerals boom finances industrial transformation rather than another cycle of raw-material extraction.
