Helios Fairfax Partners Corporation

Tope Lawani and Babatunde Soyoye serve as Co-Chief Executive Officers with day-to-day investment authority. Prem Watsa, the founder and CEO of Fairfax Financial, serves as Chairman. Lawani and Soyoye co-founded Helios Investment Partners in 2004 and bring over two decades of African private equity experience to the portfolio.

It is structured as a publicly traded corporation listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange, not a closed-end private equity fund. This means it invests permanent balance-sheet capital with no defined fund life, no capital-call timeline, and no requirement to exit investments on a predetermined schedule. The vehicle originated from the 2016 merger of Fairfax Africa Holdings and Helios Holdings Limited.

The firm deploys capital across sub-Saharan Africa and North Africa, with core markets including Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, and South Africa. Portfolio company Helios Towers provides telecom infrastructure across multiple African countries, reflecting the firm's continental rather than single-country mandate. The firm leverages on-the-ground origination teams in Lagos, Nairobi, and London.

Helios Fairfax Partners was formed through a combination of Fairfax Africa Holdings and Helios Holdings Limited. The Co-CEOs, Tope Lawani and Babatunde Soyoye, are co-founders of Helios Investment Partners, the Africa-focused private equity firm. The relationship provides deal flow, operational resources, and proprietary market intelligence, though the two entities remain legally distinct.

The firm targets buyout and growth-stage equity investments in established businesses across Africa. It does not pursue early-stage venture, focusing instead on control and significant-minority stakes in companies with proven business models and strong market positions in sectors like financial services, telecom infrastructure, and energy.