The Mohammed VI Investment Fund aims to triple the size of investments made by the private equity industry, breaking with the current size of the market, said the general director of the Fund, Mohamed Benchaâboun.
“The 15 selected funds, with a size of 18.5 billion dirhams (billion dirhams), will generate investments of around 50 to 60 billion dirhams, taking into account financial leverage”underlined Mr. Benchaâboun in an interview with the weekly “Challenge”.
Of the 15 funds selected, seven funds are specialized, including three funds in industry, two in tourism, one in agriculture and one in transport and logistics, he said.
Mr. Benchaâboun also indicated that the Mohammed VI Fund aims to contribute to making Morocco a preferred destination for international management companies to set up there, attract talents and all stakeholders in the ecosystem necessary for its development, noting that the management companies selected include 9 national companies, 5 international and one mixed.
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Investment funds are also called upon to support the companies in which they invest on a strategic and organizational level and to contribute to their institutionalization through the establishment and formalization of the rules of good governance, the enrichment of the vision strategic, development in new markets and sharing of sectoral and financial know-how, he added.
And to argue that the emergence of a solid private equity ecosystem will also ultimately broaden the pool of companies for IPOs.
Furthermore, Mr. Benchaâboun noted that each of the selected sectoral and thematic funds intervenes according to “an investment policy clearly defined in advance within the framework of the legal documentation”, explaining that the depth of the pipeline presented by the management companies and their historical capacity to deploy the funds raised were taken into account in the selection criteria.
And to note that monitoring of the financial and extra-financial performance of the Mohammed VI Fund’s investments in sectoral and thematic funds and their impact both at the level of management companies and companies in which these funds invest will be carried out on a regular basis by the Fund’s teams.
Citing certain key actions undertaken by the Fund since its operationalization, Mr. Benchaâboun underlined that the Fund took a strategic stake of 20% in Maroc Biotechnologies, as it carried out work to identify infrastructure projects for which a public-private partnership (PPP) financing structure is possible.
The Fund has worked since its operationalization alongside the main public establishments to support them in the structuring and implementation of sustainable economic models adapted to the PPP, in several areas, in particular, the energy, water and mobility, he said.
With MAP