Banklink Africa Private Equities Limited has injected an additional N2 billion into Critical Minerals Financing Corporation Plc, accelerating the transformation of the former DEAP Capital Management & Trust Plc into a specialist mining finance platform aimed at plugging Nigeria’s long-standing funding gap in the sector.
- +Banklink Africa deepens CMFC bet with fresh capital injection
The latest tranche brings total capital deployed so far to N3 billion, with the balance of the N6 billion commitment under a takeover and capitalisation agreement expected to be completed this month, the companies said.
The latest tranche brings total capital deployed so far to N3 billion, with the balance of the N6 billion commitment under a takeover and capitalisation agreement expected to be completed this month, the companies said.
Chairman Lamon Rutten said the faster pace of funding signals rising investor confidence in CMFC’s ambition to become a leading institutional platform for financing and developing critical minerals in Nigeria and across Africa.
“The additional funding commitment is a clear validation of CMFC’s long-term strategy and of the significant opportunity that exists to build a specialised African institution at the centre of the critical minerals value chain,” Rutten said.
“CMFC is not being created simply to finance mines. We are building a platform capable of connecting projects, processors, traders and manufacturers to capital, expertise and international markets.”
The company aims to mobilise domestic and international capital into mining, processing and downstream industrial activity, positioning Nigeria to retain more value from its mineral endowment at a time when global demand for lithium, copper, rare earths, tin and zinc is rising alongside the energy transition.
Joshua Adesoji, chief financial officer of Banklink Africa Private Equities, said the additional N2 billion reflects conviction that CMFC can address a structural financing shortfall in Nigeria’s mining industry.
“We believe CMFC can truly become a genuinely differentiated institution,” Adesoji said. “The company is positioned to occupy a strategic space that has historically been underserved: providing both capital and structuring capability across the full mine-to-market chain.”
Shareholders at a recent annual general meeting in Lagos approved the company’s strategic overhaul, new corporate identity, capital-raising programme and authority for the board to establish domestic and international partnerships. The resolutions formally set the transition to CMFC Plc in motion.
Nigeria holds significant reserves of strategic minerals but the sector has long been constrained by limited access to patient capital, project structuring expertise and risk mitigation tools.
CMFC plans to operate across mining project finance, structured credit, commodity trading, export finance and capital markets issuance, positioning itself as a financial anchor for a broader industrial ecosystem rather than a conventional lender to individual mines.
Analysts say the emergence of a dedicated private-sector platform could help unlock investment flows into a sector central to the country’s economic diversification drive.
