Unlocking Potential
Powering Growth
Unlocking Potential
Powering Growth
| Status | Current |
| Vintage Year | 2017 |
| Type of Transaction | Growth Capital |
Basata E-Payments was established in 2017 as a designated vehicle to invest in Egypt’s growing e-payments sector. The company was established as a joint venture between B Investments, BPE Partners, and MM Group for Industry & Intl. Trade (MTI), a market leader in the local consumer electronics distribution and retail segment.
Basata E-Payments aims to capitalize on MTI’s large distribution network and the strong financial and investment expertise of B Investments and BPE Partners to drive the growth of the company and create synergies between its portfolio and affiliate companies by offering integrated products and services.
Basata E-Payments consists of two leading e-payments and collection solution providers, namely Masary for Smart Payment Services (Masary) and TBE Egypt for Payment Solutions S.A.E (Bee) with c. 160,000 combined POS terminals. Bee and Masary provide financial services to consumers and businesses by offering a convenient and reliable way to pay bills and purchase goods and services using multiple channels.
| Vintage Year | 2017 |
| Type of Transaction | Buyout/Growth Capital |
Bee is a leading E-payment solution provider in Egypt and operates a retail network of more than 60,000 Points of Sale (PoS). Established in 2010 by Singapore-based Technobiz Equipment PTL Ltd, Bee offers payment collection services to key service providers including mobile network operators Orange, Vodafone, Etisalat, and TE. Bee provides payment services to end users through its retail network that spans across Egypt as well as its mobile application. Offering more than 170 payment services, customers can use Bee’s services to make payments on utility bills, airline and other transportation tickets, cinema tickets, university fees, online gaming platforms, stock exchanges, and charitable donations, among other options. Bee has crossed the boundary of 1 million transactions per day in 2019 serving more than 22 million customers.
Having set its sights on expanding further into the non-bank financial services sector, B Investments invested in Bee in October 2017 through its non-banking financial services platform Ebtikar for Financial Investment.
| Vintage Year | 2017 |
| Type of Transaction | Greenfield |
In November 2017, Ebtikar for Financial Investment established its first greenfield project in the microfinance industry — Vitas Misr. Vitas Misr aims to capitalize on Egypt’s large population of unbanked individuals that are increasingly seeking access to funding.
Vitas Group was founded as a for-profit holding company in 2006 by international NGO Global Communities (GC) as a means to consolidate and commercialize the NGO’s microfinance operations. GC operates in over 25 countries, with a particular focus on the Middle East, pioneering some of the most successful microfinance programs for over 30 years. Backed by GC, Vitas Group has built a name for itself as a leader in the field in its own right, having become a majority shareholder in a number of microfinance institutions in Romania, Lebanon, Jordan, and Iraq and with a minority shareholding in Palestine.
| Vintage Year | 2018 |
| Type of Transaction | Buyout/Growth Capital |
One of Egypt’s largest payment facilitators and aggregators, Masary offers collection services for more than 120 service providers including major mobile network operators: Orange, Vodafone, Etisalat and TE as well as the country’s electricity, water and gas sectors among other government entities. Established in 2009 with a focus on serving unbanked and under banked consumers, Masary operates a network of more than 60,000 points of sale, reaching 1.5mn customers a day.
In June 2018, B Investments through its non-banking financial services platform Ebtikar for Financial Investment acquired a stake in Masary.
| Vintage Year | 2018 |
| Type of Transaction | Buyout/Growth Capital |
Tamweel Group is a platform of 6 companies that operate in the Leasing, Mortgage, Factoring, Insurance Brokerage and Collection space.