Dubai, UAE, 7th April 2021:  StonePine ACE Partners – a joint venture between UAE based StonePine Capital Partners and ACE & Company SA – today announced that its portfolio company Taaleem Management Services SAE, which owns Nahda University in Beni Suef (“NUB”), a leading higher education platform in Egypt, successfully listed its shares on the Egyptian Stock Exchange under the ticker TALM.CA, in a transaction that was >29x oversubscribed for the retail offering and >2.3x oversubscribed for the institutional offering. This was also the first sizable offering to be completed on the EGX in over 18 months.

The listing took place at a share price of 5.75 EGP ($0.36) per share, with a total of 357.8 million shares sold by existing shareholders - representing 49% of the share capital of Taaleem.

StonePine ACE Partners together with CI Capital and a group of co-investors had acquired a 60% shareholding in the platform in August 2019, in a transaction valued at EGP 1.2bn ($73m). This successful exit values their stake at EGP 2.5bn ($160m), representing more than a two-fold increase in valuation showcasing the significant investment opportunities available across the Middle East region.

Commenting on the listing, Youssef Haidar, Founder and CEO of StonePine Capital Partners and the head of the StonePine ACE Fund, said: “This is a great milestone for our team, and a very successful outcome for our investors. Since our investment, we have worked closely with Taaleem’s management team, who we must thank for their flawless execution during uncertain times, to reach this outcome. The success of this investment further vindicates our strategy in the Education sector, where we have been developing significant capabilities”. Youssef Haidar will continue to sit on the board of the publicly listed company and represent the StonePine ACE Fund.

Sherif Elhalwagy, Managing Director at ACE & Company, said “Egypt has been a key focus geography for our regional growth equity fund, and we are proud of our first exit in the country. This demonstrates the potential of local markets to create successful exit opportunities for investors, and we hope to create many other similar stories in the years to come.”

StonePine ACE Partners Limited is a joint venture between StonePine Capital Partners, an investment firm with a focus on private equity investments. ACE & Company SA, are a Geneva-based and FINMA regulated global private equity group. Both are leading private equity companies with collective AUMs greater than USD1bn.

Taaleem is a leading higher education platform that controls and operates NUB, the largest private university in Upper Egypt with more than 6,200 enrolled students and a growing capacity for over 11,000; it was born on the back of extensive Egyptian government reforms to the education sector that have encouraged private sector investment over the past several years.

The university’s location in Beni Suef enables students from this highly populous and underserved region to gain access to high quality education and state-of-the-art teaching methods.

In addition to its recently launched Faculty of Medicine in partnership with the Medical University of Vienna International, Upper Egypt’s only private medical faculty and one of only a handful nationwide, Taaleem is launching three new faculties and a new university in West Cairo, Badya University, with expected capacity for additional 9,160 students.

NOTES FOR EDITORS

About StonePine Capital Partners

StonePine Capital Partners is an investment firm with a primary focus on private equity investments. The company currently invests out of two investment pools in the MENA region; a sector-agnostic fund managed in partnership with ACE & Company and a healthcare-focused investment company with established global clinical partners targeting specific healthcare verticals in the GCC. StonePine Capital Partners draws on its founder’s extensive expertise in private equity having managed multiple funds previously in the Middle East, North Africa and India regions and its extensive MENA networks which enables it to source highly attractive proprietary deal flow. www.stonepine-capital.com

About ACE & Company

ACE & Company currently manages in excess of $1bn in multiple global strategies and provides private investors unparalleled access to quality opportunities across the direct investment ecosystem. Uniquely positioned to understand the needs and challenges facing private investors today, ACE’s flexible platform offers diversified portfolios across the stages of the investment spectrum from early, to growth, to mature. www.aceandcompany.com

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