Secondaries: The Execution Gap
Why African VC secondary transactions keep stalling — and what’s actually causing the delay
A GP identifies a buyer for a position in one of their portfolio companies. Price negotiated, buyer committed, everyone aligned. Then the process stalls.
Three months in, the lawyers are still coordinating ROFR waivers — a process nobody confirmed was required before it started. Another month passes while transfer consents are coordinated and the buyer’s entity documentation is assembled. Six months after the handshake, the deal closes. The GP pays $8,000 in legal fees and files the experience under “African market friction.”
A sequencing problem, an instrument problem, and a jurisdiction problem — three distinct issues that compounded because nobody caught them early enough to separate them. It repeats on the next transaction because the diagnosis never changes.
The Organising Error
A number of African VC secondary transaction delays that I’ve witnessed trace back to a single misclassification: treating SAFE transfers and share transfers as the same legal…
