Tuareg Capital signs strategic partnership with Capital Management House and reaches 1st close on the Libya Fund

Published February 14th, 2007 - 09:00 GMT

Tuareg Capital Ltd announced that it had reached its first close target of US$30 million in commitments to its inaugural US$100 million fund, the Libya Fund. Tuareg Capital is a private equity firm established in 2006 and focuses on investment opportunities in North Africa.

The Libya Fund offers investors the opportunity to participate in a professionally-managed private equity fund, taking advantage of Libya’s attractive investment prospects. The Fund will seek to benefit from the emergence and development of one of the last frontier economies in the MENA region.

Tuareg Capital also announced the signing of a strategic partnership with Capital Management House (“CMH”) of the Kingdom of Bahrain. Under this alliance, Tuareg Capital will partner and co-operate with CMH on investment opportunities in North Africa, particularly with regards to Islamic debt financing and other structured financing opportunities. CMH will also be a cornerstone investor in the Fund.

In response to signing the partnership agreement with CMH and to successfully reaching the Fund’s first close target, Mr. Adel Saudi, Chairman & CEO of Tuareg Capital, said: “We are delighted to form such a strategic partnership with CMH. They are an extremely focused and well managed investment banking group who offer us an array of services and abilities. As well as making a significant commitment to the Libya Fund, they will be instrumental in helping us to structure innovative financing solutions in our target markets. We see the partnership as a true win-win situation. With regards to the Fund, we have been delighted by the response from investors in the region. Libya is one of the most challenging markets in the MENA region to break into and investors view the Fund as a strong and strategic opportunity to gain exposure to the Libyan economy and its promising future. We believe that we are proposing a timely and compelling opportunity to investors. We will seek to leverage our team’s significant and diverse skill-sets to generate superior returns across a diverse range of investments for our investors.”

Mr. Saad Al Shamlan, CEO of CMH, said: “We are absolutely delighted to have Tuareg Capital as our strategic partner for North Africa and regard this as the first step towards laying a firm ground for successful penetration into North Africa; in particular, Libya and Algeria. Under this strategic partnership agreement, CMH committed to approximately 70% of the Libya Fund’s first closing amount and will provide high quality services as well as structuring sharia’a compliant products for the Fund. The Fund will seek to capitalize on the recent market reforms and liberalizations that are ongoing in Libya, and it is already evaluating a number of investment targets in a range of sectors. I take this opportunity to congratulate Tuareg Capital for the Fund’s successful first closing. I am certain that together we will identify new investment opportunities for our expanding client base who will be supported by CMH and Tuareg Capital’s proactive and energetic teams.”