Citadel hires CEO for financial platform

The Cairo-headquartered private equity firm has appointed Amr Seif from Investec Asset Management to head its regional financial services platform investment.

Middle East- and North Africa-focused private equity firm Citadel Capital has appointed Amr Seif as the chief executive officer of Finance Unlimited, its financial services platform in the region.

“As an experienced investor in global emerging markets, Amr can use his expertise to grow our existing investments beyond MENA into other frontier markets,” Ahmed El Houssieny, managing director of Citadel Capital, said in a statement. 

Seif was most recently at London-based firm Investec Asset Management, where he started the firm’s MENA equity practice and managed Investec’s portfolio of MENA and Africa-Middle East funds. Prior to that, he managed a number of Middle Eastern and European equity mutual funds institutional portfolios in his time at JPMorgan in London. He began his career as a corporate credit officer at Citibank in Egypt, before joining Commercial International Investment Company as an investment banker specialising in financial services.

Finance Unlimited is Citadel’s platform investment in the regional financial services industry. Its portfolio includes Pharos Holding, an investment banking firm; microfinance firm Tanmeyah; and the Sudanese-Egyptian Bank, which provides commercial banking and trade finance services.

Citadel Capital focuses on building platform investments in the Middle East and in Africa through acquisitions, turnarounds and green field investments. The firm has invested more than $8.3 billion in 14 countries across 15 industries including mining, cemenet, transportation, food and energy. 

It is looking to invest up to $400 million in East Africa across private equity and infrastructure, Ahmed Heikal, founder and chairman of Citadel, told sister publication Infrastructure Investor recently.