Pharos helps SICO land financing from Banque Misr for New Assiut smartphone plant: Our friends at Pharos Holdings announced yesterday (pdf) that they successfully closed out their mandate to help Egyptian Silicon Industries Company (SICO) obtain a facility from Banque Misr to finance the Egyptian smartphone maker’s new 4,500 sqm phone and tablet device factory in the New Assiut tech park. Pharos acted as the exclusive financial advisor for SICO, whose flagship device, the Nile X, became the first locally-made smartphone to hit the market back in February. The transaction, the size of which was undisclosed, “enabled the company to secure the required financing for its production lines and raw materials,” Pharos’ head of investment banking, Noha El Ghazaly, said. SICO Chairman Mohamed Salem had said earlier this month that the company was beginning to export the Nile X to the UAE and had plans to expand into other Arab and African markets.