(Reuters) - Swiss private banking group Edmond de Rothschild (RLD.S) has raised $530 million for its first Africa-focused fund, the Financial Times reported on Sunday.

The fund, which will focus on making deals in Africa, will be managed by Amethis Finance - a company majority-owned by the Edmond de Rothschild, the paper said.

Luc Rigouzzo, founder and managing partner at Amethis, told the FT that the fund would target minority stakes in small to medium-sized companies.

The inflow of capital was pushing up prices of the larger deals and that was partly why Amethis would instead target minority stakes in small to medium-sized companies, Mr Rigouzzo, who grew up in Ivory Coast, said.

“Some funds may not invest all the money they raised,” he warned.

Wealthy families and entrepreneurs, who have committed about half the money to Amethis, have been quicker than institutional investors to see the appeal of investing in Africa. About three years ago, Ariane de Rothschild, Baron Benjamin’s wife, who lived in Kinshasa, the capital of Democratic Republic of Congo, gave a mandate to the bank to build an investment platform focusing on Africa, said Johnny El Hachem, chief executive of Compagnie Benjamin de Rothschild Conseil.

“We are looking for high-return projects but with a strong social development aspect,” Mr El Hachem said. “But we needed a team. We came across Luc and Laurent in 2011 and we decided to partner.”

Amethis, with about 20 staff and operating from Nairobi and Abidjan, has already invested in five companies including Kenya-based Chase Bank and Petro Ivoire, an Ivorian gas distributor.

After five years, investors will have the option to convert their stakes in the fund into shares of a company that could then float to gain permanent capital. This would allow them to keep investments over a long period, rather than having to sell them after five to six years.

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