29-Jul-2010
Banawi Industrial Group (BIG), based in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, announced that its fund management company has successfully exited its investment in Banawi Group.
Global Capital Management, the private equity asset management arm of Global Investment House, exited the Global Opportunistic Fund I (GOF I) through a buyback arrangement with BIG’s founding shareholders.
Rajiv Nakani, CFA, Managing Partner at Global Capital Management, stated, “We are proud to have supported the development of an exemplary firm like BIG over the past few years and to have witnessed the substantial growth and diversity it achieved during the same period.” He added, “Despite the difficult market conditions, we managed to close the Banawi Industrial Group exit transaction in a profitable and timely manner.”
Sheikh Hussein Al Banawi, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of BIG, said, “Having GOF I as a partner, represented by Global as the fund manager, for the past three years has provided great value to our Group at all levels. Global’s leadership believed in the BIG story and saw an example of how regional private equity fund managers, such as Global, can play a vital role and add value as growth capital financiers in the GCC and the wider Middle East region. The active contribution Global made within the institution of our Board of Directors and its various committees has provided tremendous support to our management team’s plans. This has resulted in BIG achieving substantial growth levels, be it towards strategic expansion into new markets or territories or extension of our business activities.”
Banawi Industrial Group was founded in 1957 by Sheikh Ali Al-Banawi as the first commercial printing and paper-based packaging Company in the GCC region. The company is currently active in the packaging and specialty chemicals sectors with four subsidiaries, Banawi Container Group Co., Ashwa Technologies, Henkel Technologies Egypt and Henkel Technologies Middle East.