Gulf Finance House raises over $630m of private equity funding for Energy City India project

The equity issue was underwritten by Kuwait Investment Company (KIC).

Mr. Esam Janahi, Chairman of GFH, commented:

"The success of the exercise to raise equity for Energy City India underscores the strong appetite of our clients for opportunities in India as well as the success of our Energy City Qatar project. Sophisticated global investors have been eyeing India for some time and are looking for opportunities to invest in India's economic development, particularly after the liberalisation reforms introduced a few years ago. There is no doubt that the Indian economy is dynamic - you only have to visit India regularly to see the country is changing. With foreign direct investment now allowed automatically in certain sectors of the economy we see the next few years as an opportune time to invest in more projects that help build the economy of India. Our CEO and his team have analysed the economy of Mumbai and evaluated further opportunities to work with the government of the State of Maharashtra."

Mr Peter Panayiotou, Acting CEO of GFH added:

"We had anticipated a very good response to this investment opportunity and had built flexibility into the project to allow for expansion. However, we were not expecting the strength of demand that we have seen. The issue was oversubscribed by almost 60%. Our product offers a target total return of 75% over a three year investment period and because of the precautions we took to build flexibility into our land acquisition program we can expand the size of the project and offer this target return to all clients who have subscribed. The placement is now closed and we are pleased that we took steps to meet our clients' demand."

Asked to comment on GFH's plans for further investments in India, Mr Panayiotou replied:
"We believe that there is still a lot of pent up demand for opportunities to invest in India, particularly in projects that develop economic infrastructure. Internationally, GFH is one of the leaders in this field, particularly in developing the economies of emerging market countries. Accordingly, we have undertaken a wider exercise to analyse and assess the general economic landscape of Mumbai with the co-operation of the government of the State of Maharashtra which has resulted in further opportunities being identified."

Asked to comment on GFH's plans for investments in the GCC and North Africa, Mr Panayiotou said:

"The GCC and North Africa remains our core area of investment particularly in the fields of infrastructure projects and financial services. We are planning to offer new products to our clients covering these areas before the end of this year."