Creative Investments Holding targets culture as capital

Creative Investments Holding, an Abu Dhabi-based platform backed by Mohamed Talaat Khalifa, Onsi Naguib Sawiris and MSMEDA, has closed a USD 20 mn first funding round to acquire heritage food, hospitality and lifestyle brands across Egypt and the region, marking a targeted push to treat cultural and legacy consumer assets as long-term capital. The financing comes amid a busy week for Egyptian corporate and regulatory news that also includes a government overhaul of drug pricing, a shareholder legal bid to freeze a cross-border merger, and the suspension of El Ahram Printing shares following asset seizures.

"OCI thinks the petition has no merit, saying it mostly recycles arguments already in front of the same court," the company said in response to a legal challenge filed by Dutch investor Value8 seeking to block Orascom Construction’s proposed merger with OCI Global.

Creative Investments: patient capital for heritage brands

The new platform is pitching "patient institutional ownership" to scale regional brands that have not previously been fully developed for wider markets. Backers include luxury executive Mohamed Talaat Khalifa and businessman Onsi Naguib Sawiris, with support from MSMEDA. The USD 20 mn close is earmarked to acquire heritage food, hospitality and lifestyle names across Egypt and neighbouring markets, aiming to consolidate and invest in underexploited brand value.

• Target sectors: heritage food, hospitality, lifestyle brands
• Backers: Mohamed Talaat Khalifa, Onsi Naguib Sawiris, MSMEDA
• First close: USD 20 million

Legal fight seeks to stall Sawiris merger

In a separate corporate contest, Value8 has petitioned the Enterprise Chamber of the Amsterdam Court of Appeal to keep the Orascom Construction–OCI Global transaction off the ballot at any OCI shareholders’ meeting and to open an investigation into the running of OCI. "A ruling in Value8’s favor could hold up or sink the transaction, along with some related plays," the report notes.

OCI has defended the deal, contending the petition "has no merit." The dispute follows an earlier temporary freeze by the Enterprise Chamber and the installation of two independent directors; those directors consented to convene an extraordinary general meeting (EGM) on 1 July. Orascom’s local shareholders earlier approved the merger on 22 January at an unchanged 0.4634 exchange ratio. Orascom expects OCI to complete its side of the deal in 4Q 2026, with a hard deadline of 30 December.

Regulatory and market fallout at El Ahram Printing

The Financial Regulatory Authority has suspended El Ahram for Printing and Packaging shares for 15 sessions starting Thursday as the company faces asset seizure and mounting accounting concerns. The FRA requires the firm to submit an operating plan and a legal note detailing all ongoing cases before the listing committee will decide whether to restore trading or delist the stock.

"The winning bidder is now custodian of whatever’s still bolted down, and staff have been locked out of the factory," the statement said as part of the account of enforcement actions tied to a court order enforcing EGP 62.3 mn in promissory notes signed by the former managing director. The FRA flagged alarming balance-sheet issues: reported equity of EGP 83.2 mn turns into negative EGP 106.9 mn once an EGP 190 mn revaluation surplus is stripped out, against EGP 156.9 mn of accumulated losses. Shares fell 4.92% to EGP 10.83 amid failed EGMs that drew just 19.5% of capital.

Outlook

Creative Investments’ USD 20 mn first close signals growing appetite for buy-and-build plays that reposition cultural and consumer assets as institutional investments. But the broader corporate landscape remains volatile: the legal challenge to the Sawiris-backed merger could delay a major cross-border transaction, while regulatory intervention at El Ahram highlights operational and governance risks that can rapidly erode shareholder value. Policymakers and investors will be watching the drug-pricing overhaul and the court timelines for the OCI matter closely as they shape liquidity and deal flow into year-end.