Egypt's EFG Hermes is worth a fight. The Middle East's pre-eminent investment bank has sparked rival interest from Qatar and a consortium of Egyptian financiers, backed by billionaire Naguib Sawiris, despite the allegations of illegal share-dealing levelled against the firm's two co-chief executives. While reputation is everything in finance, EFG's diverse business still has value.
The rise of EFG owes something, bankers say, to the connections of co-chief executive Hassan Heikal whose father was close to Egypt's second president Gamal Abdel Nasser. Doubts created by illegal share dealing charges and links to Hosni Mubarak, whose son Gamal still partly owns the firm's private equity business, have helped wipe 60 percent off EFG's market value since the Arab uprisings began. The bank has vowed to
defend its CEOs.
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