Crises Offer Unique Opportunities to Lay Foundation For Sustainable Global
Growth, says Private Equity Leader.
*Investors will both do good and maximize their chances of locking in
attractive long-term returns by investing in businesses that provide
solutions to some of the greatest challenges of our age, said the chairman
of Africa’s largest private equity firm*
The myriad global challenges now faced by business and policymakers alike
are daunting, but a look beyond the headlines shows there are unique
opportunities to lay the foundation for sustainable global growth by
building real businesses that address the needs of a massive, fast-growing
emerging markets population, the founder of Africa’s largest private equity
firm said today in Davos, Switzerland.
“We gather here tonight from the four corners of the world under clouds.
Not one single cloud, but many,” said Ahmed Heikal, Chairman and Founder of
Citadel Capital, the leading private equity firm in the Middle East and
Africa with US$ 9 billion in investments under control.
“In some cases, these are clouds particular to our unique circumstances,”
he noted. “In my neighborhood, we have the still-unfolding revolutions and,
in some cases, political strife and conflict. Globally, even those who
enjoy relative calm face falling consumer and business confidence, a
slowdown in global economic activity, high and rising commodity prices, and
challenging public finances.
“But uprisings, natural disasters, nuclear meltdowns and debt defaults do
not need to be the hallmarks of our age. We have a unique opportunity to
chart a brighter economic future by focusing not on traditional
opportunities, but on opportunities to generate returns while solving
problems,” he said in opening remarks at the World Economic Forum’s
Investor Reception before serving as a discussion leader for an interactive
workshop titled ‘The Investment Heatmap 2012.’
With emerging and frontier-market governments facing both rising public
expectations and constrained balance sheets at the same time as developed
markets slow down, business brings to the table the ability to articulate
and implement solutions to some of the pressing challenges of our age.
“Despite investor flight immediately after the Egyptian Revolution, Citadel
Capital raised equity and debt of well over US$ 300 million in 2011 for our
19-platform portfolio while adding a further US$ 325 million in fresh cash
to our balance sheet. We did this because we have built viable businesses
that create value for our investors by offering solutions to pressing
national challenges. Our investments offer solutions to solid waste
problems; they will eliminate Egypt’s reliance on diesel imports while
simultaneously preventing the release of nearly 180,000 tons of sulfur
dioxide each year; they ease road congestion and reduce emissions by
shifting transport off our highways and onto un-used water ways,” Heikal
said.
“This emphasis on solutions is not solely in Egypt, of course: It extends
across our 15-country footprint, from re-building the national railway of
Kenya and Uganda to growing critical crops for local sale in Sudan and
South Sudan,” he added.
“With 2012 giving every sign of looking a lot like 2011,” he concluded,
“the challenge for us today is not to complain about gathering clouds, but
to start investing in enterprises that solve these problems.”