Launch of EDGO Ventures

The EDGO Group is pleased to announce the launch of EDGO Ventures Limited ("EV"), which will act as the corporate finance and investment management arm of the Group.  Following the EDGO Group's successful re-organisation, the Board of Directors has endorsed a strategy, which entails accelerated growth across various existing, as well as new, business lines driven by acquisitions and organic growth. 
 
EV will focus on expanding the Group's petroleum service activities through mergers and acquisitions as well as provide financial structuring and capital raising expertise for the Group's exploration and production affiliate, EDGO Energy Limited. It will also develop the Group's investments in non-energy related fields and as part of its capital raising efforts for the Group, EV will seek to tap the private and public equity markets.
 
Over the past 50 years, the EDGO Group has been a diversified global investor whose portfolio of holdings includes public and private equity investments in energy, information technology, telecommunications, industry, tourism and real estate.  Going forward, EV's team will leverage the EDGO Group's experience, its capital and its relationships to further the Group's overall commercial and financial objectives. 
 
 
Editor's Notes
 
Mr. Omar Masri will join EV as its Managing Director.  Mr. Masri was previously the Founder and Managing Director of Atlas Investment Group ("Atlas"), one of the leading Investment Banks in the Middle East and North Africa.  In 2004, the Arab Bank acquired Atlas and established it as the Bank's investment banking arm and Mr. Masri was appointed as the Arab Bank's first Global Head of Investment Banking.  Prior to establishing Atlas in 1996, Mr. Masri was a Fund Manager at Foreign & Colonial Emerging Markets in London, where he structured and managed the first regional Middle East investment fund, which was listed on the New York Stock Exchange.  He was the first individual in Jordan to be granted the certified financial consultant, broker and investment manager licence by the Jordan Securities Commission. Mr. Masri is a board member of several local, regional and European public and private firms, a member of the Dubai International Financial Exchange Practitioner Committee, a board member of the Young Presidents Organisation in Jordan, and a member of the Young Arab Leaders.   Mr. Masri has a B.B.A. in Finance from the George Washington University and has completed a two-year training program at the Philadelphia National Bank/Wharton Business School in the United States.