Tuesday, May 26, 2015

Abu Dhabi: Abu Dhabi based Gulf Capital on Monday signed Dh92 million debt financing agreement with Egyptian petrochemical company Carbon Holdings to support their mega industrial projects in Ain Al Sokhna on the Suez Canal in Egypt.

The five year loan facility was extended by Gulf Capital’s credit fund, GC Credit Opportunities Fund to finance the development and expansion of three of Carbon Holdings petrochemical projects including Egypt Hydrocarbon Corporation, Oriental Petrochemicals Corporation and Tahrir Petrochemicals Corporation.

This is Gulf Capital’s fourth investment in Egypt, Dr Karim Al Solh, co-founder and chief executive officer of Gulf Capital told Gulf News.

“We are today in oil and gas, health care, consumer goods and petrochemicals sector in Egypt with total investments of $115 million. We are planning to increase our investments.”

“We are quite positive on Egypt with the economy showing signs of rebound and growth projected to increase. I think it is good time to enter Egypt.”

Egypt held a major economic summit in the Red Sea resort town of Sharm Al Shaikh in March in order to attract investments and boost their economy.

Deals worth more than $138 billion were signed on the first two days of the conference in addition to financial pledges by Gulf countries including Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

The three countries announced $12 billion aid to Egypt to support the economy which went through tough times after the overthrow of the Hosni Mubarak’s government in 2011.

The Egyptian government expects the economic growth to double from 2.1 per cent last year to over 4 per cent in 2015.

The new deal announced on Monday is expected to create nearly 70,000 direct and indirect jobs and boost industrial growth and trade flows, El Solh said.

“We are thrilled to work with Carbon Holdings which is playing a key role in the industrial development of Egypt.”

Talking about the future plans of Gulf Capital, he said they are focused on credit, private equity and real estate sectors.

“This year is going to be very active for us. We are looking at different sectors to invest.”

He said estate is a big component for the company and they are involved in Al Maryah Central project and are building big residential compound in Saudi Arabia

On private equity and credit, he said they are busy backing and financing growing companies with world class leadership.

When asked about Initial Public Offering (IPO) plans of the company, he said nothing concrete at the moment and are looking at various options.

Gulf Capital currently manages over $3.5 billion of assets across seven funds and investment vehicles.

By Fareed Rahman Senior Business Reporter

Gulf News 2015. All rights reserved.