M&A WATCH- Beltone Financial is planning new acquisitions to diversify the products it offers in frontier and emerging markets. “Beltone is in a very big growth mode,” CEO Bassem Azab said in an interview with Bloomberg on Wednesday. “We spent the past two years establishing and re-positioning ourselves in investment banking, asset management and brokerage. Now that we have our pillars reinforced on the ground, we are looking at other business lines that we want to grow.” Beltone is looking at acquisitions in leasing and consumer finance in Egypt and might consider starting a microfinance business, Azab added.

Beltone is also looking to buy companies outside Egypt to diversify product offerings beyond equities, Azab said. Beltone’s last major acquisition was New York-based brokerage Auerbach Grayson & Co in 2016.

On the IPO front, Beltone expects to bring as many as three IPOs to the EGX this year in the consumer, healthcare and industrial sectors. The firm is also pitching to co-manage a share sale in Nigeria, investment banking head Sobhy El Sehrawy said.

It also has an “aggressive” plan in 2018 to expand research coverage outside Egypt and add more analysts to its team, said Mostafa Abdel Aziz, the head of its brokerage unit.