Tycoon Zandre Campos takes a stake in Angola’s Refriango

Zandre Campos has bought into Refriango, the largest and best known beverage company in Angola, through his investment firm ABO Capital.

Neither the size of the stake nor the price has been disclosed.

Refriango holds a wide portfolio of drinks brands, dominates the Angolan market and is among the few Angolan companies with genuine capacity to sell beyond the country’s borders. Its chief executive Diogo Caldas was among the business figures the tourism ministry invited to meet LeBron James in Luanda last week, alongside the heads of Grupo Carrinho and OPAIA.

Campos built his career inside the state oil company before leaving it entirely.

He was born Zandre Eudénio de Campos Finda and educated across three continents, starting primary school in Cuba, attending secondary school in the United States and taking a law degree at Universidade Lusíada in Lisbon. He began as a legal adviser at Sonangol, the Angolan state oil company, then held senior roles at the mobile operator Movicel and at SONAIR, Sonangol’s airline subsidiary, and became chief executive of Nazaki Oil & Gas.

He left the corporate circuit in 2014 and founded Angola Capital Investments with a small group of partners.

The renaming told you the ambition. Angola Capital Investments became ABO Capital, standing for Africa Business Opportunities, and the firm now runs from Luanda with offices in Dubai, Lisbon and New York, at 641 Lexington Avenue. It buys and develops companies across energy, transport, hospitality, healthcare, technology, agriculture, financial services, manufacturing, distribution and real estate.

Campos has described the strategy as seizing the opportunities present throughout Africa, improving economies and bringing business to those countries.

He has also spent years building a public profile unusual for an Angolan businessman, writing for the Huffington Post, US News and World Report and CEOWORLD on African healthcare, education and the corporate sector.

Refriango puts him at the centre of one of the more significant corporate transactions in the Angolan market.