Published: October 13, 2009
Citadel Capital, a private equity firm in the Middle East and North Africa with US$8.3bn in investments under control, has appointed Bassem Azab as a managing director and Mohsen Mansour as a vice-president.
They are two of five recent hires as the firm looks to expand its team and continues investing in what it believes will be a vintage year for private equity.
Azab will join the Cairo-based firm’s equity team as it looks to enhance its placement power in the Arab world, particularly in the GCC countries. The drive will be key to Citadel Capital’s plans to take advantage of opportunities now appearing across the region.
“After two years of nurturing our existing platforms, it is time for us to embark on a wave of new deals and Bassem and Mohsen will be part of a team that raises financing for them,” says Ahmed Heikal, Citadel Capital’s chairman and founder.
Azab was formerly managing director at Beltone Financial’s brokerage group, where he led GCC and MENA coverage. He previously served as head of high net worth and Arab institutions at EFG-Hermes and began his career with the former Egyptian American Bank (today Credit Agricole-Egypt) and Citibank-Egypt in corporate banking.
Mansour comes to Citadel Capital after 14 years at EFG-Hermes, where he worked across a number of sales roles throughout Saudi Arabia and the Gulf. Mansour most recently headed the Gulf sales function for all EFG-Hermes product lines from the investment bank’s Riyadh office.
Earlier this year, Citadel Capital raised more than US$100m in successive rights issues in an effort to expand the firm’s ability to take sizable equity stakes in future opportunities. In addition, the firm raised US$150mn for equity and equity-linked products. As a control investor, Citadel Capital aims to hold a 10-20% stake in most investments, with the remaining ownership going to individual or institutional financial investors from Egypt, the Arab world and Europe.