- bd@hoft-global.co
- +971 56 925 4680
Syed Rizwan Ahmed
Partner Transaction Advisory & Corporate Finance
About me
Rizwan is a senior finance and investment professional with close to 30 years of professional experience behind him. He specializes in business valuations, mergers & acquisitions involving buyouts/acquisition of majority and minority stakes in cross-border deals, creating tax efficient structures, business transformation and turnarounds, risk management and internal audit, and leading finance and operation functions of businesses of various sizes including large corporates and multinational organizations.
He is the co-founder of PI Partners and is currently leading the management advisory services. In his previous roles, he has worked with PricewaterhouseCoopers and large multinational corporations, semi/quasi-governmental groups in the UAE and one of the largest private equity firms.
Rizwan continues to advise various groups in their business operations, serves as a member of various Supervisory Boards and Limited Partner Advisory Committees as well as finance experts in various Audit Committees.
Some of the transactions led by Rizwan or where he was part of the core advisory team include:
• Sell-side advisory for the successful sale of Middlesex University to Amanat Holdings (UAE).
• Sell-side advisory for the successful sale of The Entertainer FZ LLC to GFH Financial Group (Bahrain).
• Creation of a US$ 375m Private Equity fund which invested in Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria and Egypt in various sectors including Healthcare, Education, FMCG and Industrials.
• Creation of a US$ 150m education platform comprising of Middlesex University (UAE) and Taaleem Management Services (Egypt).
• Business transformation of the largest shisha manufacturer out of the region, Al Fakher Tobacco Company (Jordan).
• Buy-side advisory for the acquisition of a stake in the upcoming Formula 1 driver by a large business conglomerate in the MENA region.
• Business transformation of one of the largest FMCG groups in the region, The Savola Group (KSA).
• Creation of a US$ 200m healthcare platform comprising of Cleopatra Hospital Group (Egypt) and Taoufik Hospital Group (Tunisia).• Cost optimization and business process re-engineering of the largest private K-12 school operator in the world, GEMS Education.
• Fraud investigation of various telecom operators and media companies in Sweden.
• Establishment of the New York edition of the largest free newspaper in the world, The Metro (Sweden).
• Successful completion of forensic audits of various PE Funds commissioned by a group of DFIs as LPs in the Funds.
Rizwan is a fellow member of The Institute of Chartered Accountants of Pakistan and also holds an Associate membership of The Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales.
