Investcorp to spend $400m on stakes

Bahrain-based alternative investment manager Investcorp is looking to spend more than $400m on stakes in companies in Turkey and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) in the coming two years, a senior executive said Monday. Investcorp's $1bn Gulf Opportunities Fund I, which is 50 percent invested so far in four deals, is in advanced talks with four to five target companies, James Tanner, head of corporate investment, said on the sidelines of a private equity conference. "We hope to close at least two deals next year and to deploy an average of $60m equity per deal," he said. "We're broad-minded about sectors but we're mainly looking at sectors that demographics change. We like defensive sectors like transportation, healthcare, food and oil and gas," he added. Investcorp has closed four private equity deals in the Middle East and North Africa since its launch in 2008, in Turkey, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Kuwait. It invested $98m in October 2008 in Redington Gulf, a regional distributor and service provider of IT and telecom products. It also has stakes in gold and jewellery manufacturer L'azurde and a 20 percent stake in Gulf Cryo, a manufacturer of industrial, medical and specialty gases. The company confirmed on Sunday it had acquired three real estate assets in the United States for $100m, taking its total buys in the US to eight in 2011 with a combined value of $300m. Investcorp, which once floated luxury brands Gucci and Tiffany & Co, posted a rise in net income for the fiscal year ending June 30 to $140.3m from $102.2m for the year-ago period, it said in August. Investcorp had $11.8bn in assets under management at the end of June 2011 across its private equity and hedge fund businesses.