Citadel Capital named Acquisitions Monthly's "MENA Private Equity House of the Year"

The Acquisitions Monthly Awards are widely acknowledged as being among the most prestigious designations in the international financial services industry.

Ahmed Heikal, Chairman and Founder of Citadel Capital, said:

"It's a great honor to be named best MENA private equity firm. Success during a time when the private equity industry is generally facing challenges is the ultimate endorsement of the effectiveness of our control investment strategy, our team and the attractiveness of the frontier markets in MENA on which we are focused."

"Having returned in excess of $1.4bn of cash to our limited partners in 2007," Heikal added, "perhaps our most important, and fortunate, strategic step in 2008 was our early decision to slow new investment activity and focus instead on strengthening our existing Platform Companies. As a result we feel our existing portfolio is in a good shape to weather the downturn and take advantage of their strong capitalizations."

In addition to completing six bolt-on acquisitions in 2008, Citadel Capital also completed a $45m (10.0x) partial exit of its controlling stake in ASCOM Geology and Mining, a regional geological mining and services company and raised over $350m of equity and 5-year term debt at the general partner level.

Since 2004, this dynamic firm has generated more cash from exits than any other private equity investor in the Middle East and North Africa region. From all its transactions to date, Citadel Capital has returned $2.3bn of cash to its coinvestors (3.0x+ invested capital). Citadel Capital remains one of only a handful of private equity general partners worldwide to make significant investments in its own transactions. Having raised significant amounts of capital in 2008, the firm is generally acknowledged to be well positioned for what will likely be great vintage years for private equity investing in 2009 and 2010.

Acquisitions Monthly's 20 January 2009 awards ceremony put Citadel Capital on the same podium as Advent International, the Private Equity Firm of the Year winner, and Mid-Market Private Equity Firm of the Year 3i. More than 500 senior executives from the corporate finance, investment, and legal sectors attended the eleventh annual presentation in London.