Egypt: Sovereign fund bringing in Actis to help attract investment

Egypt’s sovereign wealth fund has agreed to team up with private equity firm Actis to help attract and steer private investment into Egypt and to cooperate in energy and infrastructure projects, it said on Monday. The memorandum of understanding with UK-based Actis will directly support “the Sovereign Fund of Egypt’s objective to attract and steer private investment toward critical sectors for Egypt’s economy,” it added.

Egypt set up the fund in February to take control of some of the government’s most promising assets in industries such as power and real estate and bring in private investors to develop them. The fund has a paid-in capital of 1 billion Egyptian pounds ($63.5 million), but President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said in October this could rise to as much as several trillion pounds.

It will start off by selling a 25-year concession, owned by the Egyptian Electricity Holding Co, to operate three 4.8GW power plants built by Siemens under a 6 billion euro ($6.65 billion) deal signed in 2015.  Actis has proposed helping sell one of the three plants, a statement quoted the fund’s chief executive Ayman Soliman as saying.

“We consider Actis’s proposal to be a strong sign reflecting its underlying interest in expanding its investments in Egypt and we look forward to unlocking further appetite and value through such partnerships,” Soliman said.