Mr Agarwal during a past interview. FILE
By NEVILLE OTUKI, notuki@ke.nationmedia.com
In Summary
- PricewaterhouseCoopers on Tuesday said Tibor Almássy will lead its East Africa corporate advisory business —which handles mergers, IPOs and debt advisory.
- Mr Almássy joins PwC’s East Africa business from Hungary where he manned the firm’s advisory practice in central and Eastern Europe.
Consultancy firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC)
has named a new head of its Kenya deal-making unit to replace Vishal
Agarwal as firms seek to cut the dominance of investment banks in
crafting transactions.
The firm on Tuesday said Tibor Almássy will lead
its East Africa corporate advisory business —which handles mergers, IPOs
and debt advisory.
Mr Agarwal told the Business Daily he was
quitting the consultancy firm after a span of 15 years to manage the
Nairobi office of private equity firm Tribute Capital East Africa.
“Tibor Almássy’s appointment coincides with growth
trends in Africa pointing to the need for deep expertise in valuations,
business economics, corporate and project finance and strategy
consulting,” Anne Eriksson, PwC’s regional senior partner for East
Africa in a statement.
“A PwC recent survey shows that failure to agree
upon valuation has been the single most important cause of uncompleted
deals in emerging markets. Mr Almássy has extensive experience in these
areas and others.”
Besides Kenya, he will scout for deals in 10 other
countries in East Africa including Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Zambia,
Mauritius, South Sudan and Ethiopia.
Mr Almássy joins PwC’s East Africa business from
Hungary where he manned the firm’s advisory practice in central and
Eastern Europe.
The consultancy firm did not mention the exit of Mr Agarwal whose handling of the KenGen IPO in 2006 as the lead transaction adviser catapulted his career.
The IPO, which raised Sh26 billion out of the
required Sh7.8 billion, is credited with ushering in retail investors to
the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE).
It was after this eye-opening investment that a
vast number of retail investors, including those with little knowledge
of stock market trading, made their debut to the Nairobi bourse.
After the deal, Mr Agarwal was later promoted from
being an employee of PwC to a partner, a position that allowed him to
share profits generated by the consultancy firm in east Africa.
In 2006, India-born, America-trained investment
banker helped a consortium led by South African firm Sheltam to secure
the concession deal of the Kenya-Uganda Railways. Sheltam later sold
its stake to Egypt’s PE Citadel.
He also aided France Telecom beat Reliance of
India and Telkom South Africa to acquire a 51 per cent stake in Telkom
Kenya in 2007.
“After 20 years in the advisory business, I am now
going to run a PE outfit as managing partner,” said Mr Agarwal. “I will
target the PPP (private public partnerships) that are in the pipeline.”
The government is banking on private capital to
plug a huge financing gap for infrastructure projects as social
programmes and Constitution implementation takes up bulk of its
revenues.
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