(MENAFN- Khaleej Times) Dh850 million raised in February will be invested in attractive sectors.
Dr Karim El Solh Basil El-Baz chairman of Carbon Holding and Ehab Hamooda. Supplied photo
Abu Dhabi: With a $25 million performance-driven debt financing in a petrochemical company Abu Dhabi’s Gulf Capital’s investments in Egypt rose to $150 million its chief executive officer Dr Karim El Solh said.
Speaking to Khaleej Times after signing a debt financing deal with Egypt’s Carbon Holding group he said his investment firm had raised Dh850 million in February this year which will be invested in attractive sectors. “We are looking to financing our activities in real estate private equity and credit and we thought it’s great time to be borrowing at low interest rate” he said.
“You always have an option to increase equity so we felt borrowing is better” the chief executive officer said.
About his upcoming investment projects Dr Karim said the upcoming projects are led by real estate sector as the multi-billion realty project Maryah Central on Abu Dhabi’s Al Maryah Island which will become the capital’s largest retail hub; a big residential compound in Saudi Arabia. On private equity and credit he said “we are backing and financing and growing companies with world-class leadership.”
Asked about future investment plans the chief executive officer said he hoped to be announcing a corporate deal in Gulf and Egypt.
Earlier at a ceremony attended by Egypt’s Ambassador to the UAE Ehab Hamooda Gulf Capital signed a debt financing deal of $25 million with Egypt’s biggest private sector project to be built in the next five years costing $7.5 billion. It involves three mega petrochemicals projects being set up by Carbon Holding to have a profound impact on the economy of the North African nation.
Carbon Holding is setting up a $550 million Mining Grade Ammonium Nitrate plant Oriental Petrochemicals Corporation a polypropylene production plant and Tahrir Petrochemicals Corporation a $7.4 billion greenfield naphtha cracker olefins production complex with associated derivative units. Dr Karim El Solh said the North African nation’s economy is going to grow by seven per cent in five years. He was bullish on Egypt’s economy which saw political instability in the recent past.
Economic growth is on strong trajectory share market index is soaring and consumer confidence is upbeat he said. He said: “Egypt is committed to embarking on an ambitious growth plan and to attracting and supporting foreign investments in the country.”
Gulf Capital has invested $125 million in healthcare manufacturing consumer goods and oil and gas.
The confidence in the Egyptian economy was reflected in investment deals worth more than $138 billion signed on the first two days of the Sharm El Sheikh Conference in addition to financial pledges by Gulf Egyptian and international businessmen for new investments in the country and a multi-billion dollar government support package announced by the UAE Saudi Arabia Kuwait Oman and the World Bank.
The Egyptian government expects the economic growth to more than double from 2.1 per cent last year to over four per cent in 2015.
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