Strategy

Citadel Capital acquires or creates national champions that serve as platforms for regional expansion in specific industries. For each deal, the firm raises an Opportunity-Specific Fund (OSF). To date, Citadel Capital has raised 19 OSFs that control Platform Companies in 15 industries with investments of US$ 9.5 billion. The firm has long pursued an incremental approach to investment that served it well during the challenging global economic climate that prevailed in 2008-09.

Citadel Capital is a control investor with its senior management and staff as its single largest shareholder. It is also a principal investor in its own transactions, with equity of more than US$ 940 million committed to its own deals. The firm’s investment footprint spans the Middle East and Africa, with a particular emphasis on opportunities in North and East Africa.

Citadel Capital deploys a hybrid business model that incorporates aspects of a traditional investment firm with characteristics of an asset manager. As a principal investor, Citadel Capital contributes 10-20% of the equity in each of its funds, with the balance being third-party money from leading MENA and global limited partners.

As a result, the firm generates revenues from two different streams: Through capital gains on its principal investments as well as from the asset management side of the business, where the firm earns an advisory fee on assets under management as well as a carried interest over a hard hurdle on the capital gains it makes for the LPs in its Opportunity-Specific Funds.

Among the industries on which the firm currently focuses are cement, mining, energy, food, transportation and logistics, and metallurgy.