​EFG Hermes, the leading investment bank in the Arab world, announced today that Walid Hassouna, a veteran of the Egyptian banking community, will join the senior management team as Chief Executive Officer of EFG Hermes Finance and Group Head of Debt Capital Markets starting today.   An award-winning banker, Hassouna has closed structured and project finance transactions worth in excess of USD 15 billion in a sixteen-year career that began at Misr International Bank. Hassouna joins EFG Hermes from Banque Audi Egypt, where he was general manager and head of structured finance and investment banking. The hire is another milestone in the firm’s transformation into a financial services corporation offering a comprehensive suite of products and services including the traditional investment banking suite as well as a growing portfolio of non-bank financial services.  “Following the launch of EFG Hermes Leasing in 2015 and the acquisition of Tanmeyah in 2016, our new EFG Hermes Finance platform is well on its way to establishing itself as a major industry player. Human capital is naturally our primary asset in realizing this vision.  Hiring someone of Walid’s calibre will help us expedite our expansion plan not just on the EFG Hermes Finance front, but just as importantly in establishing a strong presence for EFG Hermes in the region’s fast-growing debt capital markets,” said EFG Hermes Group Chief Executive Officer Karim Awad.  “The announcement today of this key hire underlines our commitment to the strategy we laid-out last month in announcing the use of proceeds from the first phase of our exit of Crédit Libanais by serving two main purposes,” Awad noted. “On the one hand, it will complement our region-leading investment banking platform with strong debt capital markets expertise, providing our clients with a more complete suite of services. At the same time, the success that we are currently seeing with our top-ranked leasing business and our newly acquired microfinance arm gives us great confidence in the growth potential that the non-bank finance market holds. Against that backdrop, the need to continue to enhance our platform with experienced human resources to help us capture this growth and to explore innovative ways of financing our platform takes on an increased level of importance.  “With more resources at hand, we now look forward to the roll-out of new businesses in the short term,” Awad said.  Hassouna will join a growing executive team at EFG Hermes Finance, headed by Wael Ziada, who will become Executive Chairperson of the platform. This highly experienced executive team will be responsible for implementing the firm’s ambitious growth strategy as it aims to make EFG Hermes Finance the leading non-bank financial institution in Egypt. In addition, the highly experienced banker Fatma Lotfy will provide invaluable guidance to the team in her position as EFG Hermes Finance’s Non-Executive Chairperson.   “I am delighted to welcome Walid to our team,” Ziada said. “We have a proven capacity to integrate high-level talent at both greenfields such as EFG Hermes Leasing and at acquisitions, most recently microfinance leader Tanmeyah. I look forward to working with Walid to create a comprehensive non-bank financial services platform with a high competitive metabolism as we build-out or acquire new ventures that help our clients reach their financial goals. Speed, approachability and a commitment to bringing added value to our clients will continue to be our core values.” “As the build-up of EFG Hermes Finance continues, we remain just as focused on the growth of our investment banking platform. We are carefully executing our plan to transform EFG Hermes into a financial services corporation providing access to MENA and frontier markets; to expand our public and private assets under management; and to deploy our strong, liquid balance sheet by adopting a merchant banking model,” Awad concluded.