The Egyptian Financial Supervisory Authority (EFSA) has given the green light to the sale of CI Capital to a consortium of investors, according to a disclosure from CIB. CIB says EFSA said it had no objection to a number of investors with whom the bank had inked sale and purchase agreements (SPAs) in December. CIB says it is currently reviewing the non-objection and studying the final agreement structure. The SPAs were signed with a group of non-related Egyptian and Gulf investors for an aggregate 71.94% of CI Capital in transactions worth a combined EGP 683.4 mn that valued the investment bank at EGP 950 mn. At the time, the investor consortium was said to include: Arafa Group’s Alaa Arafa, construction magnate Mahmoud El Gammal, Tiba Group’s Saddiq Afifi, former Zamalek football club chairman Mamdouh Abbas, five unnamed stakeholders in Zahran Group, Compass Capital’s Shamel Aboulfadl and Ayman Mamdouh Abbas, and Alameda Healthcare’s Fahad Khater.

On Thursday, we reported that Saddiq Afifi and Mamdouh Abbas backed out of the agreement. Ayman Mamdouh Abbas followed the news by suggesting that the individuals making up the investor consortium would look into revising each of their proposed stakes to account for those who withdrew, but EFSA Chairman Sherif Samy threw cold water on that suggestion by saying that any investor looking to increase their stake to more than 5% would require obtaining a non-objection from EFSA first. A source tells Al Borsa the transaction could be completed this month.

A source close to the transaction credits Investment and International Cooperation Minister Sahar Nasr for moving the transaction along toward close. “She’s being very hands on — a nearly year-old transaction is closing because she is making the clearing of hurdles a priority,” the source said.