John Bellew, the prominent private equity lawyer, has joined Bowman Gilfillan from Webber Wentzel, where he had spent almost 30 years in their corporate practice. As a partner in Bowman Gilfillan's corporate practice, he will head up the firm's Private Equity group. Joining him in the move to Bowman Gilfillan's corporate practice are James Westgate as Partner and Tim McDougall as Senior Associate.  All three appointments are effective October 1st, and they will be based in the law firm's Johannesburg office.

Brian Kiai is joining Centum Capital as Deputy Director, where he will be primarily responsible for the company's investment activities in the real estate sector, as well as overseeing the expansion into new sectors of interest for the firm which include healthcare, agribusiness and education. He joins the Kenyan investment company from Berkeley Holdings, the private equity and corporate advisory firm, following a career that has included roles at UBS, Actis and The Rohatyn Group. He assumed his new position last week, on October 1st.

Nigeria's former minister of communications and technology, Omobola Johnson, is joining TLcom Capital as General Partner to open the London-based VC firm's new office in Nigeria and lead its West African investment strategy. The firm is looking to raise $100 million for its latest vehicle, TLcom TIDE Africa Fund, which will look to invest between $500,000 and $10 million in e-commerce, energy, health and education technology startups. Johnson, who left office after the elections earlier this year, was Minister of Communications from 2011. 

In its annual report to South Africa's Parliament last week, Public Investment Corporation revealed that its assets under management grew by almost 13% to R1.8 trillion (approximately $131 billion) over the 2014-2015 financial year and achieved a real rate of return on its investments of 13.72%. While the lion's share of the funds, which are invested by PIC on behalf of the Government Employees Pension Fund, the Unemployment Insurance Fund and Compensation Commissioner Fund, are committed to listed equities, the corporation is expanding its allocation to unlisted developmental investments and private equity opportunities within South Africa, the rest of Africa and other frontier markets.