Trust us, we're euphoric - Private equity and a tax haven part of the EBRD's first post-Arab Spring swoop

For its first loan to 'Arab Spring' countries the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development has chosen vehicles and partners whose ability to deliver developmental value is highly uncertain.

This article is from Issue 53 of our quarterly newsletter Bankwatch Mail

Download as pdf

Go to overview page

Browse all articles on the right

 

Subscribe for email delivery

Public investment millions provided to a private equity fund based in a tax haven - these days, with the buccaneer activities of private equity firms and the use and abuse of tax havens very much in the public spotlight, this kind of thing could validly be expected to provoke a public outcry.

Yet when such investments are made under the cloak of international 'development finance', as the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development did last week, there is not only cursory media reporting but, by the sounds of it, some hearty back-slapping within the EBRD itself.

The deal in question, a EUR 20 million equity investment in Maghreb Private Equity Fund III, is part of the EBRD’s first raft of signed-off investments for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.

This article has been cross-posted on the Bankwatch blog.

Read the full text