Hunt, 42, joins Sean Meyersfeld, who left the Johannesburg- based investment-banking unit of HSBC, Europe's biggest bank by market value, at the end of July to join the buyout company. Hunt starts today as chief executive officer, Marlow's Investment Chief Meyersfeld said in an interview today.

"We will look to invest across Africa, although our primary focus will be South Africa," Meyersfeld said. "We will look to target industrial and consumer businesses with sound cash- generative ability."

Beth Mandel quit in July as head of Morgan Stanley's South African unit to join Capitalworks Investment Partners Ltd, a Johannesburg private equity company. Gerard Kemp today starts as chief investment officer of Pamodzi Resources Fund I, a $1.3 billion private equity fund targeting mining investments in Africa, after resigning as head of resources at FirstRand Ltd.'s investment banking unit, Rand Merchant Bank.

"We are looking to raise third-party money, which will for the first time allow Hollard to participate more broadly in the South African private equity market," said Meyersfeld.

South African private equity companies, including Brait SA and Ethos Private Equity Ltd., last year raised 13.7 billion rand ($2 billion) to push assets under management to 56.2 billion rand.

"The industry will comfortably exceed more than 70 billion rand in assets by the end of this year," JP Fourie, the executive officer of the South African Venture Capital Association, said by phone.