Private Equity Revives as Regional Markets Reopen

As Dubai freight-forwarding firm Able Logistics Group began preparing early this year to go public, it conducted a leveraged recapitalisation, taking on fresh bank debt so it could pay a cash dividend to shareholders.
By the standards of developed Western markets, the transaction was routine. But for the Middle East it was an unusually creative deal, a sign that the region’s private equity industry is finally building momentum as capital markets unfreeze after the global financial crisis.
“Investors and banks are regaining their appetite for risk,” said Haythem Macki, a partner at Bahrain-based private equity firm Growthgate Capital, which owns 70 percent of Able.