EFG-Hermes Holding SAE (HRHO.CA) announced that it has started its negotiations with Qatar's QInvest LLC on holding a majority stake in a planned investment bank that would take over the Egyptian bank's brokerage, investment banking and asset management businesses. The investment bank would be the largest in the Arab World, Africa, Turkey, and South East Asia. EFG-Hermes said the proposed venture would include securities brokerage, asset management and investment banking operations, but not EFG Hermes Private Equity. EFG-Hermes said its private equity business and Lebanese commercial bank Credit Libanais SAL, in which it bought a 65 percent stake in 2010, are excluded from the discussions. Egypt's EFG Hermes and Qatari Islamic investment bank QInvest declared last March their merger of some of their operations so as to create an investment bank covering the Arab world, Africa, Turkey and South East Asia. QInvest, which got a license from the Qatar Financial Centre Authority (QFC Authority) to operate in April 2007, whose authorised capital amounts to $1 billion and paid-up capital values at $750 million. EFG-Hermes' capital amounts to EGP 2.3 billion distributed to 478.29 million securities, in which the par value worth EGP 5 per share.
