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Press Releases: Citadel Capital Hires Industry Expert as CEO of its Financial Services Platform |
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Monday, 08 March 2010 |
Citadel Capital (CCAP.CA on the Egyptian Stock Exchange), the leading private equity firm in the Middle East and Africa with USD8.3bn in investments under control, announced the appointment of City of London investor Amr Seif as Chief Executive Officer of Finance Unlimited, its platform investment in the regional financial services industry. Seif joins Finance Unlimited from London-based Investec Asset Management, where he started and led the company’s MENA equity practice and was portfolio manager for Investec’s MENA and Africa-Middle East funds. He returns to Egypt after more than 10 years of investment experience in global emerging markets.
“I’m delighted that we have attracted an international talent of Amr’s stature to lead growth at Finance Unlimited. As an experienced investor in global emerging markets, Amr can use his expertise to grow our existing investments beyond MENA into other frontier markets,” said Citadel Capital Managing Director Ahmed El Houssieny.
Commenting on the progress that Finance Unlimited has achieved thus far, El Houssieny said, “We ended 2009 on a high note after launching an innovative microfinance investment, expanding activities at the Sudanese-Egyptian Bank and winning sizeable deals and mandates at Pharos Holding, a financial services firm that is now a market leader on both the brokerage and asset management fronts. We have an ambitious vision for Finance Unlimited and we are confident that Amr will be able to deliver fantastic value to our shareholders and investors.”
"I am extremely excited about the opportunity to expand Citadel Capital's financial services' presence across frontier markets. East African markets particularly, Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania, are most promising indeed. They possess the human capital, GDP growth and political will to prosper n the medium and long term. There's no question that the financial sector is a prime beneficiary at this stage of their economic development."
Seif began his professional career as a corporate credit officer at Citibank in Egypt. In 1997, he joined Commercial International Investment Company (CIIC) as an investment banker specializing in financial services. Amr’s stint in the City of London commenced in 1999, where he built a long track-record with JP Morgan managing a number of Middle Eastern and Eastern European equity mutual funds and institutional portfolios. At the time of his departure from JP Morgan,he had in excess of USD2bn under management. Seif earned a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from Cairo University and holds an MBA from the Katz Graduate School of Business at the University of Pittsburgh. He assumes his new responsibilities on 1 April 2010. Finance Unlimited Portfolio Companies include: Pharos Holding (investment banking), Tanmeyah (microfinance) and the Sudanese-Egyptian Bank (commercial banking and trade finance). Finance Unlimited has led the Sudanese-Egyptian Bank (SEB) through a series of expansions. In 2006, 70% of the bank was acquired and by the end of 2009, paid-in capital rose from USD15m to USD28.9m, total assets grew from USD28m to USD165m and the number of branches increased from one to six. The bank’s focus is on overall trade promotion as well as the financing of both large national projects in Sudan and local small and medium enterprises.
Tanmeyah, launched in July 2009, is a greenfield portfolio company that launched with 15 branches. After issuing loans worth nearly USD1.5m in its first 30 days of operations, Tanmeyah went on to open 48 branches and grow its portfolio of outstanding loans to USD9.1m across 32,000 clients by year’s end. It is the company’s long-term plan to expand its success to other high-growth yet significantly underpenetrated regional markets. Pharos Holding’s brokerage arm was the fifth-ranked broker on the Egyptian Exchange in 2009, while its asset management division launched Pharos Fund I, the firm’s first equity fund, in July 2009.
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