Written by: Ramy sameeh
 

Investment firm Qalaa Holding (formerly known as Citadel Capital) seeks to divest completely non-core business activities within three years, in return for $300 million, said Hisham Hussein Al Khazendar Managing Director, Co-Founder and Executive Member of the Board for Qalaa.

 

Al Khazendar noted, in exclusive statement to Mubasher, that he expects the company's assets value to double digit to reach $200 million by the end of 2015, on the back of the divestment policy that the company adopts now.

 

The divestment policy aims to narrow our focus on core subsidiaries in sectors including energy, cement, agrifoods, transportation & logistics and mining, added Al Khazendar.

 

Earlier, Qalaa announced that it has exited its 80% stake in investment bank Pharos Holding for Financial Investment, at a value of EGP40 million.

 

Elaborated, the company's chief pointed out that the company seeks to off-load its cement factory Djelfa in Algeria. “We are in the middle of talks with number of Algerian parties interested in the scheme, but we didn't reach any final agreement yet”, he added.  

 

Qalaa has invested around $180 million in Djelfa's project.

 

"We received both local and foreign acquisition offers for our companies Enjoy and El Masryee, but no final decision has been reached yet" , he said.

 

Al Khazendar afirmed that the company is focusing now on its $3.7 billion Egyptian Refining Co's (ERC) plant in Cairo.

 

ERC is not yet operational and $200 million, a very large amount of our capital, is tied to ERC, which we are aiming to have operational by 2017," he said.

 

As for the company's capital increase, he said "Such news will be announced in the proper time, as it is subject to company's board as well as regulators’ approval."

 

Late 2014, news reports indicated that Qalaa Holding is considering a share issue worth some 4 billion pounds ($560 million) as part of efforts to tighten control of its core investments and end years of losses.

 

At this time, the company stated that the final figure for the capital increase has yet to be confirmed as the transaction has not been finalized.

 

The company has moved from being a private equity firm to an investment holding structure, boosted its capital by about $530 million in Oct. 2013.

 

Qalaa, one of Egypt's largest investment companies, has some $9.5 billion in assets under management, including stakes in dozens of firms mainly in Egypt, east and North Africa.

 

Translated by: Shaimaa ELSarky