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.