The GC Call

This week, we're talking with Sherif El-Helw about the timing and considerations ahead of an exit, and the role of an external advisor to support the sale process. Sherif has worked with with firms such as Morgan Stanley, Booz & Co, Beltone Financial, Akanar Partners and is now Managing Director at Arqaam Capital. He has over 24 years of experience covering Corporate Development, financial structuring, valuation, managing teams and has executed over 10b USD worth of M&A transactions.

We're joined today by Mohammed Jaffar. Mohammed is Chairman & CEO of Faith Capital Holding, a Kuwait-based venture capital fund. Prior to this, Mohammed was the CEO of Talabat.com, a leading e-commerce business they eventually sold to Delivery Hero in 2015. We talk about his learnings from being on both sides of the aisle, as a founder, and now as a full-time investor in companies, and the role of advisors in exits.

We're joined today by Mohamed Khalifa, Group CFO of Middle East Glass, to talk about debt refinancing. Khalifa led MEG's debt refinancing with the IFC and CIB as a way of securing the company's balance sheet, in addition to steering the company through multiple devaluations of the Egyptian pound. We talk about the refinancing process, and the toolkit CFOs need to navigate the troubled waters we're seeing today.

We're joined today by Mohamed Madani and Rick Dallas to talk about mergers and acquisitions. Madani has led a number of unique buy-and-build platforms including Metamed, Middle East Glass, and CWB, which you'll hear about on the episode. Rick, who's our Senior Managing Director, has led investment execution and post-acquisition monitoring.  We talk about the tactical and strategic reasons to pursue a merger or acquisition and how these are structured with some regional examples.

We're joined today by our Senior Operating Partner, Asaad Salhab to understand the role of the operating partner. Asaad has been with Gulf Capital for the past decade, and has over 30 years of experience in leading several integrations across Europe and MENA. We discuss what happens before the deal is done, the importance of the 100-day plan, and how we partner with management via the board.

We're joined today by Nick Ogden to discuss corporate governance, specifically the role of the Board of Directors. Nick is a serial entrepreneur, having founded WorldPay back in 1995 as the first internet payment service to guarantee worldwide payments; since then he founded ClearBank in 2014, RTGS Global in 2019 and 54Knots Limited in 2021. Nick also sits on multiple boards including ING-backed Funding Options, Visa-backed ShieldPay and Geidea, a Gulf Capital Portfolio company.

Following up on our episode about financial due diligence, Fraser Dawson joins us today to talk about all things legal due diligence. Fraser is a Partner at Addelshaw Goddard, and has covered a broad range of M&A and other corporate transactions in both Europe and the Middle East. He's also a CFA charterholder, which makes him unique and specially suited to his field of expertise, which includes cross-border acquisitions. 

Norma Taki joins us on the show today to talk about the importance of financial due diligence (FDD). Norma looks after Transaction Services at PwC, specializing in FDD and business valuations. We also explore the importance of Vendor Due Diligence (VDD) during the fundraising process.

Christopher Rose joins us on the show today to talk about what the capital market looks like over the next 12-18 months, and what is needed to negotiate in these changed circumstances. Chris is a partner in the Corporate, M&A and Private Equity practices at Dentons, one of the largest law firms in the world with over 200 offices in 80 countries. Chris has over 20 years of experience exclusive in venture and growth, with over 200 deals across both developed and emerging markets. Links: Brad Felt: Venture Deals: Be smarter than your lawyer and venture capitalist William Draper: The Startup Game

We're continuing our conversation with Ankur Shah, ex-CFO of Careem, the largest venture-backed exit in our region. If you haven't heard it yet, you can listen to Part I in your podcast app, where we talk about his insights on recent market conditions and his 3T framework. On Part II, we expand on the various do's and don't for founders and management ahead of fundraising.

We're kicking off our first episode with Ankur Shah, now ex-CFO of two large enterprises including Careem. Careem was the largest venture-backed exit in our region, fully acquired by Uber for US$3.1 billion. In Part I of this conversation, we'll get into some of his insights on recent market conditions and his suggested framework for building sustainable companies.

Welcome to The GC call, a window into the investment process. On the show you'll hear from regional investors, entrepreneurs & management, as well as advisors who participate in the overall process. Over the first few episodes, we'll be talking about making the deal happen with some of the do's & don'ts of managing the investment process, outlook for private and public companies over the next 12-18 months and dig into managing the transaction. We'll also be looking at how the board and shareholder interactions should work, and discuss the exit process. The GC Call is brought to you from Gulf Capital, the leading alternative investment firm in emerging markets, from North Africa to South-East Asia. We've been investing in private companies for nearly two decades and currently have USD$2.5 billion of assets under management.