Gulf Financiers Seek to Invest in Libya

Several Arab equity funds are interested in buying into Libya’s oil sector

A number of experienced financiers from the Gulf have set up an equity fund dubbed Tuareg Capital that will focus exclusively on Libya and primarily on its oil industry. Tuareg Capital is presently putting together finance for its first fund, which is to invest $100 million. The company’s shareholders are ASA Consultant, the consultancy of the founder of the Arab Banking Corporation, Abdullah Saudi, as well as the Bahrain conglomerate United Gulf Industries Corporation. UGIC holds stakes in energy projects in the Gulf, particularly in the Yanbu National Petrochemical Company and United Stainless Steel in Bahrain.

The managers of Tuareg Capital, which opened an office in Tripoli at the end of 2006, are Adel Saudi, a former executive of the Abu Dhabi Investment Company, along with Abdullah Boulsen, a former Merrill Lynch employee in London, and Adel Al Sayed, who previously worked for the Gulf Investment Corporation in Kuwait and is now CEO of UGIC.

Tuareg Capital isn’t the first equity fund to show an interest in Libya’s oil. Late last year, the Bahrain bank Venture Capital Bank, which has teamed up with the U.S. concern Global Emerging Markets to manage a $250 million Small & Medium Enterprises Fund 1 L.P. invested $50 million in the Libyan drilling company Challenger. It operates 22 rigs in the country and is headed by Libyan businessman Hassan Tatanaki, who is close to Saif el Islam, son of Libyan leader Muammar Kadhafi. Challenger works as a regular subcontractor to Libya’s National Oil Corporation and to Total, Marathon and ENI in Libya.

Source: Africa Intelligence

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Tuareg Capital would like to make a minor correction to this article. The fund referred to in the first paragraph is actually the 'Libya Fund' and it has a diversified focus on opportunities in Libya. Further, the directors of Tuareg Capital are predominantly Libyan.