Merger Creates Dubai-Based KCP Capital
August 5, 2008
KIT Capital, MNA Partners and River Road Ventures have merged to form KCP Capital, a cross-border merchant bank focused on the increasing business opportunities and capital flows between the Gulf Cooperation Council zone, the Americas, and ascendant emerging markets, the firm said today.
The firm, with offices in Dubai, New York and Los Angeles, will have four major practice areas: merchant banking, led by Kamal El-Tayara; real estate, led by Daniel W. Hart; asset management, led by Irfan Amanat; and digital media, led by Kaleil Isaza Tuzman.
The KCP merchant banking team serves as a syndicate and financial advisory service to corporations and fund vehicles in the real estate, media, retail, transportation, telecommunications and technology industries. Since 1995, KCP principals have raised third-party equity financings in excess of $2 billion in these industries and have completed over 100 transactions in the Americas, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia.
The newly formed KCP Emergency Markets, a dedicated private equity fund focused on frontier emerging markets, will serve as the firm’s real estate investment vehicle. The fund's investment strategy is based on the arbitrage between real and perceived risk in dislocated markets, where positive catalysts—such as regime change, the end of bellicosity or civil strife, or integration into regional trading organizations—may quickly and fundamentally change a country or regional investment landscape.
KCP Structural Arbitrage invests in global currency and fixed income. The fund has been in existence since 2005 and since then has achieved a 26.8% compounded annual return after fees.
KCP Capital was formed by the merger of KIT Capital, a special situations merchant bank, MNA Partners, a boutique corporate finance and investment firm focused on the MENA region, and River Road Ventures, a U.S.-based early stage venture capital firm.
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