Egypt’s sovereign funds, banks, investors to set up new education investment platform

An alliance of the Sovereign Fund of Egypt (TSFE), Banque Misr, Suez Canal Bank, Misr Insurance Holding, and a number of private sector companies signed on Tuesday an agreement to set up an education investment platform.

The new platform will be under the supervision of Hossam Kabbani, Ironwood Investments, and Misr Capital,

Egyptian Minister of Planning Hala al-Saeed attended the signing ceremony.

The minister said TSFE seeks to raise around 1.75 billion Egyptian pounds ($111.5 million) in capital to invest in providing high-quality education to the middle class through the new education investment platform, named Lighthouse.

The alliance and partners will invest more than 500 million pounds in the first closing of the platform with, al-Saeed added.

This investment is part of the country’s efforts to improve the education sector, the minister noted, referring to an amount of 56.4 billion pounds being allocated in public investments to the sector for the financial year 2021/2022, 18 percent up from the financial year 2020/2021.

Lighthouse investment platform for education is the TSFE’s third in the sector, said the fund’s chief executive Ayman Soliman.

The new platform aims to invest in 10-12 schools, mainly in Cairo and Giza in the first phase, while the second phase will cover cities of Alexandria, Beni Suef, Assiut, Port Said, Gharbiya, and Qaliubiya, Soliman added.

Helmy Hamza & Partners, Baker McKenzie Cairo acted as the legal counsel to TSFE whereas Al Kamel Law Firm acted as the legal counsel to Banque Misr,  Helmy Hamza & Partners said in a statement.MBH-Press-Release-Lighthouse-5-July-2021