M&A WATCH- Among the highlights from last week’s M&A conference, for those of you who were unable to attend:

HC Securities is in the final stages of advisory on two acquisitions in the GCC worth a combined EGP 1.4 bn, the firm’s chairman, Hussein Choucri, told us on the sidelines of the first Egypt M&A and Private Equity Forum. The first transaction will see an unnamed Saudi firm acquire a 30% stake in an unnamed Kuwaiti oil company for EGP 900 mn, while the second transaction sees the firm advising a UAE investment fund looking to acquire a Bahraini schools outfit for some EGP 500 mn.

Our friends at Pharos Holding have an M&A advisory pipeline that includes transactions worth a combined USD 50 mn in the coming months, said Noha El Ghazaly, managing director and head of investment banking at Pharos. The firm has as many as 10 transactions in the pipeline for potential execution in the next year, primarily in the food, manufacturing and healthcare sectors.

Sentiment at the gathering was widely positive. “The robust growth in the economy has been driven by the different set of reforms ranging from legislative reforms to floating of the Egyptian pound yield results and increase global investors’ interest in Egypt,” said Shamel Aboul Fadl, chairman of private equity outfit Compass.

Spotlight on health and education: The twin sectors are undergoing particular change — in business and on the regulatory front, prompting us to turn up at a panel looking at opportunities in each. In each sector, it’s a game of scale that favours local players who can grow quickly, suggested our friend CIRA CEO Mohamed El Kalla and EY-Parthenon Partner Jeremy Panacheril.

Don’t wait for the khawaget: Mahmoud Selim, HC’s head of investment banking, took it a step further saying local players shouldn’t wait for foreign investors to provide the capital they need to scale up. Al Tamimi & Company Partner Gary Watts held somewhat of the contrarian view, arguing that there will be an influx of international and global players, noting that the attracting foreign investment is government policy.

Other takeaways:

• The focus in education has always been on the high-end of the income spectrum, but the real goldmine is serving the demand of the middle class, El Kalla said.
• The sectors will inevitably see consolidation — for the same reason that big coffeehouse franchises edged mom ‘n pop cafes out of the market, Watts said.
• The biggest challenge in the regional health and education sectors? Regulation, Panacheril said.
• There are plenty of opportunities for private equity investors to create value by investing in alternatives to classical education and on edutech, El Kalla noted.