LE 150M bailout fund for factories to be launched ‘in days’: Kabil

CAIRO - 29 May 2017: A capital risk firm for financing insolvent factories will be launched within days with LE 150 million, under the name of Misr for Capital Risk, Minister of Industry Tarek Kabil said in a Monday statement from the ministry.

The stakeholders of the fund are the Industrial Modernization Center (IMC), Ayadi Company for Development and Investment, the National Investment Bank and Tahya Masr (Long Live Egypt) Fund, Kabil said.

“The total number of requests submitted by insolvent factories to the IMC reached 135 cases; 63 cases of them were solved,” the minister said, noting that the remaining 72 factories will benefit from the new fund after studying their status.

CEO of the fund partner Union Capital Hany Tawfik said that the fund’s board of directors is yet to be announced, adding that the IMC will act as the technical arm, as it will study the cases that should be given priority in the fund.

Tawfik announced in February that the fund will prioritize such cases where operations are suspended due to liquidity shortages, very labor-intensive, or facilities that do not rely much on imports or exports.

Around 960 factories were reported by the Ministry of Industry to have gone bankrupt in 2014, after the financial issues they endured following the 2011 revolution.