Global Investment House “Global” announced today that Global Opportunistic Fund I "GOFI" is declaring a pay out of approximately 9% and along with earlier distributions, the total distributions for the Fund aggregate to approximately 25% of the capital invested to the unit holders on record as on March 31st, 2008.
Mr. Omar M. El-Quqa, Executive Vice President, declared that “the payout represents the principal and net investment income from fully exiting Al Argan International Real Estate Company (“Al Argan”) and partially exiting from Al Shafar Industries (“ALUMCO”) and Ithmaar Bank (“Ithmaar”) as well as dividend payouts from various portfolio companies.”
Mr. Shailesh Dash, Head of Alternative Investments Group added “The Fund Manager, Global Investment House, was negotiating the sale of Al Argan with a strategic investor since mid-February when the stock was trading at 390 fils and managed to close the deal at a price of 440 fils to give GOFI a 13% premium above market price.
He added “we executed the transaction on the Kuwait Stock Exchange to reflect a 2.31x return multiple on investment and an absolute return of 131% over the total holding period of the fund.”
It is worth mentioning Global Opportunistic Fund (GOF I) invested in Al Argan August 2005 and since then, Al Argan has established itself as one of the pioneers in the residential development segment in Kuwait. Al Argan has also successfully expanded its operations regionally and into other segments of real estate development through fully-owned subsidiaries and joint ventures. Al Argan currently has offices in Dubai, Muscat, Manama, Riyadh, Beirut, and Cairo and is working on opening an office in India towards year end.
Mr. Dash also noted that GOF I has also managed to partially exit from ALUMCO through its recent capital increase at approximately a 3x return multiple and an absolute return of 177% over the total holding period.”
He also pointed out that “ALUMCO provides services in manufacturing and installation of all types of façade systems and offers the most advanced systems found anywhere in the world. It currently sits on approximately AED 650 million dollars worth of contract and is in the process of expanding its business on both local and regionally scale through various tie-ups with industry professionals.”
Mr. Dash also added “after listing on Kuwait Stock Exchange, the Fund Manager decreased its holding position on Ithmaar Bank as it partially exited at a 1.64x return multiple implying an absolute return of 64% on the holding period of the Fund to benefit from the high liquidity of the stock’s trading volume.
Mr. Dash further stated that the above returns are calculated on the sale prices and do not include dividends received on these companies.
Ithmaar Bank was incorporated in the Kingdom of Bahrain in 1984 as an investment bank regulated by the Central Bank of Bahrain. Ithmaar’s shares started trading publicly on the Bahrain Stock Exchange on June 4th 2006 and more recently on Kuwait Stock Exchange on March 31st 2008 where Global acted as the listing advisor.
Global’s private equity investments began shortly after establishing Global in 1998 and has managed to develop further as its first private equity fund was launched in 2003. Starting with a team of 3 in 2005, the private equity team today employs a team of 35 professionals, the largest dedicated private equity team & investment professionals in the MENA region with cumulative work experience of more than 200 years.
The team comprises of 9 nationalities spanning the MENA region and South Asia enabling it to prove a local perspective for deals in all target regions. The teams employs diverse work experience and backgrounds ranging from private equity, investment banking, transaction advisory, venture capital, financial research, strategy consulting, credit rating and auditing. The team employs its in-house due diligence team for quick and thorough financial due diligence on time critical deals. The Private Equity Team currently manages a total of USD 1.6 billion from 4 funds of which it committed more than US$ 1 billion into 47 portfolio companies spread across the MENA region, Turkey, India and China spanning across 15 different sectors.
About Global Investment House “Global”
Global Investment House “Global” is a full-fledged investment company incorporated in 1998, and falls under the regulation of the Central Bank of Kuwait. Its underlying foundation is to meet the high expectations of local and international clients, and to enhance the investment service industry in Kuwait and the region. Today, Global stock lists on the Kuwait, Bahrain, and Dubai Stock Exchanges, with branches and affiliates in Bahrain, Dubai and Abu Dhabi (UAE), Jordan, Qatar, and Sudan. Global plays an important role in promoting investment opportunities in the Arabian Gulf Peninsula to investors through expert financial engineering, in-depth research and reports to advance the capital market in the region. Thus, Global’s achievements have been recognized on local, regional, and international levels. The company’s current assets under management reached KD2.3 billion (USD8.6 billion) at the end of 2007.
For more information about Global, please contact (Dalal Al-Radi), (Senior Media Relations Executive). E-mail: (email), Tel: (965) 240-0551 Ext. (418.); Fax: (965) 242-0498; P.O. Box: 28807 Safat, 13149 Kuwait; Web; www.globalinv.net
