GFH closes subscription in AMA Int’l

DUBAI — GFH Capital, the DIFC subsidiary of GFH Financial Group, announced Saturday the successful closure of the subscription in AMA International Investments‪,‬ which was recently launched in December 2016‪,‬ with a value reaching $50 million. The AMA International Group ‪(“‬AMA‪”)‬ manages the largest network of educational institutions across Asia and other markets in Africa and the Middle East. AMA also has various other business interests ranging from information technology, banking, real estate and agriculture. The placement was oversubscribed by investors from across the GCC. The investment, which will be in the form of a Shari’a compliant Murabaha facility, is expected to yield 11% cash-on-cash returns and deliver an internal rate of return (IRR) of 11%. Luay Ahmadi, Senior Executive Officer of GFH Capital commented: “We are extremely pleased to have been able to bring this opportunity to our investors who are seeking attractive yields and returns. This oversubscription underscores the strength of the opportunity and those that we continue to bring to investors in the education space and others. We are pleased that investors have recognized the quality of this investment as well as GFH’s ongoing ability to extract and deliver value from our investments in the regional education sector Ahmadi added: “This reflects very positively over the Group and we expect to see strong ongoing performance from our education assets, including AMA, and look forward to working to build on the success they have achieved and their reputation for excellence in the Kingdom of Bahrain and across global markets where AMA is active”. AMA’s educational operations cover basic education from pre-schools to Grade 12, post-secondary training, collegiate and university programs and post-graduate degrees. Their network spans education facilities in the Philippines, Hong Kong, Macau, etc. Xiamen, China, Nigeria, Oman, Iraq, Jeddah and the Kingdom of Bahrain. In the Kingdom of Bahrain, AMA International operates an international university, an international school and a training institute. AMA University, the largest private university in the Kingdom, was established in 2002 and offers undergraduate and graduate programs in the fields of finance and business administration, computer science and mechatronics engineering. The University has the distinction of being the first and only ABET accredited private university in the Kingdom of Bahrain. ABET is the leading global accrediting body in applied sciences, engineering, computing and technology with accreditors from Harvard, MIT and similar institutions. AMA International School, which started its operations in September 2004, is a leading K-12 learning facility. The School is the first in Bahrain to integrate robotics in the curriculum and has recently started offering the IB Diploma Program with the approval of the IB World School. The School incorporates an American and Cambridge curriculum paths and this is further enhanced by the world-renowned Great Explorations in Mathematics and Science (GEMS) program of the Lawrence Hall of Science, University of California, Berkeley. — SG