Jordan Investment Trust P.L.C. (Jordinvest), one of the leading providers of comprehensive merchant, investment, and financial services locally and regionally, recently announced partnering with the International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group, to promote the development of primary and secondary education in the MENA region. This partnership was cemented following IFC’s further $8 million equity investment in First Education Holding, supplementing IFC’s $14 million debt financing to the company announced in June 2009.
IFC’s partnership and financing will support the acquisition of two schools in the MENA region. The signing ceremony was held on Wednesday December 16th in Dubai, and was signed by Guy Ellena, Director of IFC’s Health & Education Department, who signed with the shareholders of First Education Holding (“FEH”), including Mr. Ahmad Tantash in his capacity as Chairman and CEO of Jordinvest and Vice Chairman of FEH.
On this occasion, Mr. Ahmad Tantash expressed his happiness about this partnership, stressing IFC’s ongoing efforts in fostering sustainable economic growth in developing countries by financing private sector investments. Mr. Tantash also added, "We at FEH firmly believe that the private sector has a major role to play in supporting the education sector, stemming from our strong belief that learning is an important resource in developing the region. IFC’s involvement will facilitate FEH’s expansion strategy, and will help us in achieving our aims of promoting and expanding high-quality education in the region, thus achieving our vision of becoming a leading high-quality education company that caters to the education needs of middle to low-income families in MENA”.
It is worth mentioning that Jordinvest is a major shareholder in First Education Holding (FEH), a Bahraini closed company established in 2007 as a unique partnership of education experts and investment banking professionals, aimed at capitalizing on the investment opportunities in the MENA private education sector. The company focuses on acquiring and operating K-12 grade schools in the MENA region.
