EFG Hermes and the Sovereign Fund of Egypt (SFE) will wrap up their acquisition of the Arab Investment Bank (AIB) a month later than planned. Masrawy reports that their acquisition of a 76% stake in the state-owned bank will likely be finalized by the end of March, rather than in February as previously thought.

What’s with the delay? The lawyers are taking longer than expected, sources say.

Background: EFG Hermes and the SFE announced in June that they had been given the green light by the central bank to start due diligence on the AIB, and that they planned to purchase the stake through a capital increase to EGP 5 bn, which they were hoping to complete before the end of 2020. EFG would become the controlling shareholder with at least 51%, while the SFE would take no more than 25%. The state-owned National Investment Bank currently holds 91.4% of AIB, while the Federation of Arab Republics owns the remaining 8.6%.

AND IN OTHER M&A NEWS-

Egyptian-founded research publisher Hindawi was acquired by publisher Wiley for USD 298 mn, Wiley and Hindawi announced on Tuesday. UK-based Hindawi — founded in Egypt back in 1997 by Ahmed Hindawi and his wife Nagwa Abdel Mottaleb — is one of the world's largest fully open access journal publishers and publishes more than 200 peer-reviewed scientific journals via its in-house Phenom platform. The company is projected to see 50% y-o-y topline growth in its FY ending 31 December 2020, generating some USD 40 mn turnover. “The acquisition of Hindawi enables Wiley to move farther and faster toward our goal of meeting the world’s … need for new knowledge,” said Wiley president and CEO Brian Napack. Hindawi has an office in London as well as one in Cairo’s Nasr City. You can read more about the founders here.