AGL 38.54 Increased By ▲ 0.97 (2.58%)
AIRLINK 129.50 Decreased By ▼ -3.00 (-2.26%)
BOP 5.61 Decreased By ▼ -0.03 (-0.53%)
CNERGY 3.86 Increased By ▲ 0.09 (2.39%)
DCL 8.73 Decreased By ▼ -0.14 (-1.58%)
DFML 41.76 Increased By ▲ 0.76 (1.85%)
DGKC 88.30 Decreased By ▼ -1.86 (-2.06%)
FCCL 35.00 Decreased By ▼ -0.08 (-0.23%)
FFBL 67.35 Increased By ▲ 0.85 (1.28%)
FFL 10.61 Increased By ▲ 0.46 (4.53%)
HUBC 108.76 Increased By ▲ 2.36 (2.22%)
HUMNL 14.66 Increased By ▲ 1.26 (9.4%)
KEL 4.75 Decreased By ▼ -0.11 (-2.26%)
KOSM 6.95 Increased By ▲ 0.10 (1.46%)
MLCF 41.65 Decreased By ▼ -0.15 (-0.36%)
NBP 59.60 Increased By ▲ 1.02 (1.74%)
OGDC 183.00 Increased By ▲ 1.75 (0.97%)
PAEL 26.25 Increased By ▲ 0.55 (2.14%)
PIBTL 5.97 Increased By ▲ 0.14 (2.4%)
PPL 146.70 Decreased By ▼ -1.70 (-1.15%)
PRL 23.61 Increased By ▲ 0.39 (1.68%)
PTC 16.56 Increased By ▲ 1.32 (8.66%)
SEARL 68.30 Decreased By ▼ -0.49 (-0.71%)
TELE 7.23 Decreased By ▼ -0.01 (-0.14%)
TOMCL 35.95 Decreased By ▼ -0.05 (-0.14%)
TPLP 7.85 Increased By ▲ 0.45 (6.08%)
TREET 14.20 Decreased By ▼ -0.04 (-0.28%)
TRG 50.45 Decreased By ▼ -0.40 (-0.79%)
UNITY 26.75 Increased By ▲ 0.35 (1.33%)
WTL 1.21 No Change ▼ 0.00 (0%)
BR100 9,806 Increased By 37.8 (0.39%)
BR30 29,678 Increased By 278.1 (0.95%)
KSE100 92,304 Increased By 366.3 (0.4%)
KSE30 28,840 Increased By 96.6 (0.34%)

Cairo-based private equity firm Citadel Capital said on Friday it sees opportunities to invest in Iraqs oil and gas sector and in the mining, agriculture and retail sectors in select areas of Africa. Ahmed Heikal, chairman of the firm he co-founded in 2004, also sees opportunities to do public-to-private deals of Egyptian companies, although he declined to name the sectors or companies he would be interested in.
"Were looking ... were exploring investment opportunities in Iraq for oil and gas," Heikal said in an interview with Reuters on the sidelines of a conference called the Emerging Markets Private Equity Forum. He said Citadel has one investment deal awaiting financing in a cement company in Iraq.
Heikal said that in East Africa, he sees opportunities for agricultural and mining investments. He also sees opportunities for retail and real estate investments in northern Africa. He named South Sudan, Ethiopia and Uganda as places Citadel is looking.
Citadel said its funds have $8.3 billion invested in 12 countries across the Middle East and Africa. Heikal said of that, 60 percent is invested in north Africa, 15 percent in East Africa and 15 percent in the Gulf. Citadel is most likely to do development-type deals rather than large leveraged transactions, due to continuing problems in raising financing for deals, he said. The global credit crisis has shut off the industrys access to financing for leveraged deals of any significant size. Heikal described the deals hes doing as "incremental and phased," meaning investments are made in multiple phases with little upfront capital.
Citadel raises money on a transaction-by-transaction basis rather than having a fund to draw on for any deal, as is typical with US buyout firms. It structures itself by having a series of "platform" companies specific to one industry which control its portfolio investments.

Copyright Reuters, 2009

Comments

Comments are closed.