NBD Sana Capital eyes Turkish firms

Bloomberg

"We are looking at a few very attractive deal opportunities, particularly in Turkey and India," Suresh Kumar, group director at Emirates NBD, said in an interview in Dubai yesterday. "There is no better time" for a private equity fund to invest than now considering the decline in valuations, he said.

NBD Sana aims to raise the size of the fund to $250 million in 2009 and eventually to $500 million, Kumar said.

Gulf economies have surged on the back of record oil prices this year and rising government investments, helping spur growth of private companies. Private equity investors in the Middle East manage more than $25 billion, according to buyout firm Abraaj Capital. Valuations in buyout deals are a quarter of the 15 times earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization seen a year earlier, Mustafa Abdel-Wadood, Abraaj’s managing director, said in October.

"Private equity was one asset class, a little ahead of its time in terms of valuation and in terms of expectations on valuations, and the correction has certainly helped them," said Kumar, who is also a chief mentor at NBD Investment Bank.

NBD Sana was set up by NBD Investment Bank, a unit of National Bank of Dubai PJSC, which in October 2007 merged with Emirates Bank International PJSC to create Emirates NBD.