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Riyada Enterprise Development and Mowgli Foundation launch pilot mentorship program

RED to support year-long Mowgli Foundation pilot mentorship program for Arab entrepreneurs

Partnership to extend online through MentorMatch, a Wamda matchmaking initiative to connect mentors with mentees

Dubai, UAE; November 9, 2010: Riyada Enterprise Development (RED), Abraaj Capital 's new US$500 million small and medium enterprise (SME) investment platform, and the Mowgli Foundation, a UK-based non-profit organisation established to make a difference to business startups and budding entrepreneurs through the power of mentoring, announced today the launch of a pilot mentorship program to support Middle East-based entrepreneurs.

In addition to funding, the partnership between RED and Mowgli will ensure that regional early-stage businesses will receive the invaluable benefit of business leaders' experience and institutional support.

For this year-long mentorship pilot program, RED will nominate entrepreneurs from its portfolio of investments to benefit from trained and experienced business mentors provided by Mowgli. To commence the program, two CEOs have been selected: one in Jordan and one in Palestine. Both are businesses that RED is in the process of completing investments in. Over time, more will be added to the program.

"Mentorship is an important component in nurturing successful entrepreneurs and developing human capital, and Mowgli has a tried and tested system for implementing sustainable mentorship programs," said Tony Bury, Founder of Mowgli Foundation. "We are delighted to partner with Riyada Enterprise Development on this exciting journey of facilitating entrepreneurship in the region."

The Mowgli Foundation will provide the mentorship, drawing on its database of mentors with relevant experience, while RED will actively monitor and support the initiative.

This announcement comes on the second day of the 'Celebration of Entrepreneurship'; a unique two-day gathering of more than 1,500 entrepreneurs, innovators, business leaders, finance providers, policy makers and creative professionals from across the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia (MENASA). In setting up the RED fund, and hosting and organising the Celebration of Entrepreneurship, Abraaj Capital is demonstrating its commitment to developing human capital in across the MENASA region.

Tom Speechley, Abraaj Capital Partner and Chief Executive Officer of RED, said: "We are absolutely passionate about mentorship at Abraaj . Not just because it is a worthy cause but because it makes great business sense. We want our entrepreneurs to develop through the experiences of others that have gone before them. This is especially important in the SME space, where entrepreneurs need all the help they can get to transform their businesses into market leaders. In Mowgli, we have found a partner that understands the science of mentoring. They mentor the mentors and have built up significant experience in cross-cultural mentorship programs that have helped support numerous regional entrepreneurs, including in Syria, Lebanon, Palestine and Jordan."

The partnership between Mowgli and RED will extend to Wamda, the MENASA region's most dynamic, comprehensive and connected entrepreneurial website, launched by Abraaj Capital . Wamda's MentorMatch, a powerful new online platform that is being launched at the Celebration of Entrepreneurship, will match regional mentors with mentees online and thereby further support the development of an entrepreneurship ecosystem where entrepreneurs, innovators, mentors and other stakeholders come together to facilitate entrepreneurship in the MENASA region.

The Celebration of Entrepreneurship takes place from November 8-9, 2010, at the Madinat Jumeirah Conference Centre in Dubai, UAE.

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About The Mowgli Foundation:
The Mowgli Foundation is a not for profit, international mentoring organisation. It was established to make a difference to business start ups and budding entrepreneurs, often in less developed economies. Mowgli use the power of mentoring, and match mentors with mentees, to support the sustainable development of SME businesses thereby supporting job creation, promoting economic stability and ultimately contributing to the alleviation of poverty.

About Riyada Enterprise Development:
Riyada Enterprise Development (RED) is the small and medium enterprise (SME) investment platform of the Abraaj Group. It is a targeted US$500 million initiative focused on investing in SMEs in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), including Turkey and Pakistan. RED targets individual investments of between US$500,000 and US$15 million, with a focus on providing growth capital for influential minority and, in some cases, majority stakes in SMEs. It is sector agnostic but prefers entrepreneurially run and innovative businesses that are scalable into new regional markets, and that can leverage technology to support their work. Its primary focus is on profitable SMEs in need of capital and institutional and strategic support to grow. The RED initiative operates at both a regional and country-specific level, providing economies of scale and the ability to facilitate geographic expansion of its portfolio companies. The RED team is a dedicated unit within the Abraaj Group that operates solely on the SME initiative through a network of local offices that currently includes Dubai, Amman, Cairo, Ramallah and Beirut, with additional local offices being established in target countries throughout the region. For more information on RED, please visit www.abraaj.com.

About Abraaj Capital :
Abraaj Capital is the biggest private equity group in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia (MENASA). Since inception in 2002, it has raised close to US$ 7 billion and distributed almost US$ 3 billion to its investors. Headquartered in Dubai, the Abraaj Group operates eight offices in the region including in Istanbul, Cairo and Riyadh. Funds managed by the Abraaj Group or its predecessor entities have made 36 investments in 11 countries and achieved more than 20 exits. More than 75 world-class investment professionals work for Abraaj Capital , which manages seven funds; four buyout funds; Riyada Enterprise Development Fund, a Fund dedicated to small and medium enterprises; ASAS, an income-generating, sale-and-leaseback Fund; and a real estate Fund. Assets under management at the end of 2009 were US$ 6.1 billion. Funds managed by the Abraaj Group have holdings in about two dozen companies in the region including Air Arabia, the region's biggest low-cost carrier; Acibadem Healthcare Group, Turkey's largest privately owned hospital operator; and Al Borg Laboratories, the Middle East's biggest privately owned medical-testing laboratory company. Abraaj Capital has won many regional and international awards, including five consecutive years as 'Middle Eastern Private Equity Firm of the Year' from London-based Private Equity International. Abraaj Capital Ltd., a member of the Abraaj Group, is licensed by the Dubai Financial Services Authority. The group is also an associate member of the European Venture Capital Association.

For further information please contact:
Nicholas Nesson
ASDA'A Burson-Marsteller
Dubai, UAE
Tel: +971-4-3355969
Fax: +971-4-3356080
E-mail: n.nesson@asdaa.com

© Press Release 2010