Africa Advisory Growth: A&M Opens Cape Town Office

Alvarez & Marsal‘s push into Africa signals rising demand for execution-heavy restructuring and transaction support. That demand is growing faster than the supply of pan-regional advisory platforms able to deploy senior teams on the ground.

A&M moves in as global funds scale Africa allocations

Alvarez & Marsal (A&M) launched its first African office in Cape Town in May 2026. The office creates a launchpad for mandates across South Africa and the wider continent. A&M says the Cape Town office is aimed at helping organisations improve operational performance, strengthen resilience and deliver greater returns from existing infrastructure and capital-intensive assets. Its focus includes infrastructure, energy and capital-intensive industrial assets, including mining-related mandates.

Global funds are seeking exposure to power, transport, digital infrastructure and critical minerals. These deals often involve complex capital structures and partnership models. As a result, investors increasingly need advisers that combine restructuring, transaction and performance-improvement skills — not pure strategy support.

A&M’s integrated transaction advisory teams already work for private equity and sovereign wealth investors globally. Extending this model into Africa gives A&M a platform to follow global clients into the continent. It also allows the firm to compete for mandates against more established audit-linked advisers.

Advisory gap widens as demand outpaces pan-African capacity

The core investor story is a growing mismatch. Capital targeting Africa is scaling rapidly. Yet the pool of firms able to execute complex restructurings and transformations across borders remains small. Large infrastructure and energy transactions typically cut across multiple jurisdictions, currencies and regulatory regimes. They often involve state-owned enterprises or public-private partnerships. That raises the premium on advisers who can structure workouts, stabilise assets and drive operational change while managing political and stakeholder risk.

A&M’s Cape Town hub is designed to serve both local corporates and international investors. The move also reflects wider interest in Africa’s advisory market as global firms reassess the continent’s risk-return profile. Energy transition, supply-chain diversification and the race for critical minerals are all reshaping that calculus. Execution-heavy advisers are likely to see steady deal flow not only from new investments, but also from legacy assets. Those assets require restructuring or operational repositioning to meet new standards on climate, governance and digital integration.

For investors, A&M’s entry provides another signal that Africa’s deal and restructuring market is maturing. The advisory ecosystem is starting to catch up with capital flows. However, pan-African capacity remains thin relative to demand, especially outside South Africa and a few major hubs. That imbalance suggests continued opportunity for specialist firms, joint ventures and local partnerships that can scale advisory capability across the continent.

For institutional investors and development finance institutions, the practical takeaway is clear. Early engagement with capable advisers will be critical to originate, structure and fix complex assets at speed. Investors should monitor how quickly firms like A&M can build out local capacity beyond South Africa and whether new entrants will deepen the advisory bench across the continent’s key growth corridors.

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