Arabia Capital Turnaround Fund is a $100 million fund being established to invest in equity and quasi-equity in turnaround small and medium enterprises (SME) in the Middle East. The fund intends to do diversified investments of $10-15 million on average per company, to acquire majority or controlling stakes in distressed or defaulting companies with the objective of creating value through restructuring and re-launching of the company. Companies of interest shall be in industries where it has a competitive advantage or where the investment is a purely local play where consolidation in the sector is imminent.

Sherif Afifi, a VP with Arabia Capital, brings more than 16 years of operational restructuring experience, specializing in business performance improvement and interim management. His primary expertise is the formulation and implementation of restructuring and performanceimprovement plans for underperforming businesses. As part of the Advisory Services team Mr. Afifi supports the whole deal lifecycle from initial assessment, operational due diligence, merger integration, carve out/separation, through to post deal value enhancement. He evaluates operational restructuring options to maximize benefits during a operational restructuring and corporate turnaround. Mr. Afifi develops restructuring strategies based on analysis of cash flows.

Prior to that Mr Afifi was a Senior Manager with Alvarez & Marsal in the Middle East he has led and been part of several Operational Performance Improvement projects to turnaround companies.He specialises in Performance Improvement and to free up cash from operations to create value for clients. He has provided strategic and operational advisory at A&M.

His advisory work for A&M clients includes detailed review/drawing up of business plans, cash-flow management, designing process improvements and dashboards, conducting project feasibility analysis, strategic planning, advisory to improve margins and to reduce cost and implementing working capital improvements to free up cash from operations. he has led restructuring and turnaround plans for both stressed and distressed companies. Mr Afifi assisted in aspects of business origination, including pitches and presentations and worked in project teams comprising other colleagues from Transaction Advisory Services, such as commercial and operational due diligence.

Most recently with A&M Mr. Afifi served as the Interim COO for for a Dubai based $1bn retail chain , facing liquidity crunch; controlled procurement and rationalized inventory; worked with CEO and CRO in compiling business plan and cash-flow for restructuring. As part of this project, Mr. Afifi executed the turnaround of highly leveraged operations. Mr. Afifi also led the implementation of cost savings and operational efficiency programmes.

Previously at A&M Mr. Afifi served as the interim Head of Retail for Tadawi Group, Saudi Arabia, one of the largest pharmacy chains in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia with more than 350 outlets. Working alongside Tadawi CEO and CFO, Mr. Afifi helped in turnaround of the company through increased efficiencies of retail operations and by identifying and executing upon a comprehensive operational restructuring that involved SKU rationalization and store closures. The projects involved stores and product profitability analyses used as the basis for business right-sizing. Tadawi operating profit was improved by 2% through a combination of SKU reduction and overhead elimination..

Prior to joining A&M, Mr. Afifi was a Business Consultant in Saudi Arabia, where he successfully managed several restructuring and turnaround projects in advisory and interim management roles. He served as an Interim COO for Mocha Café International in KSA, He led the team for one year and was key in the business realizing its commercial production and profitable trading. I was brought in as COO to stabilize, restructure operations and sell the business which consisted of 20 stores and 150 employees. As part of these projects, Mr. Afifi, assessed financial capabilities, worked on CAPEX savings by using DCF valuation to prove an investment to be negative NPV identified. Mr. Afifi advised on new growth opportunities, executed turnaround of highly leveraged operations and recommended sell / partner strategies. Upon completion, the company was sold for 2.5 x the original investment

Immediately prior to his role as an independent Business Consultant in Saudi Arabia, Mr. Afifi was Director of Operations with a US$ 1 billion turnover Americana Group in Saudi Arabia. Mr. Afifi drove operational excellence across different business lines, increased same store sales by 14%, successfully opened 8 new stores in one year, launched new products, planned and implemented staff training programs and increased overall group profitability in Saudi Arabia.

Prior to Americana, Mr. Afifi was General Manager with El Sewedy Foods, where he managed sales growth of 22% per annum over 2 years, improved operating profit by 38% and operating cash flow by 35%.

Mr. Afifi is a graduate in Sociology from Ein Shams University in Cairo he is also a Certified Valuation Analyst and a member in good standing of the International Association of Consultants, Valuators and Analysts ,USA. He speaks fluent Arabic and English.

Sherif Afifi – VP, Arabia Capital Advisors & Managers LLC