Gulf Capital Regional Credit and Mezzanine Fund completes a first investment in Turkey to Orion Group

Gulf Credit Partners, the credit and mezzanine fund of Gulf Capital, has successfully completed an investment in Orion Group (Orion), a prominentprovider of facility management services solutions in Turkey. Orion provides cleaning, catering, security and laundry services to leading corporate customers in medical, transportation, hospitality, retail and other sectors. Orion was advised by Daruma Corporate Finance.

This mezzanine investment of US$20 million by Gulf Credit Partners is the second completed investment for the recently launched fund and the first in Turkey. It represents a significant achievement for Gulf Capital and another important milestone in the development of the regional credit markets, where financing options for growing businesses remain limited.

Orion is a full-fledged integrated services provider, capable of fulfilling a full suite of facilities management needs under long-term contracts for large scale customers and projects. The capital invested enables Orion to continue with its consolidation strategy, to strengthen its leadership position in key sectors and to round-out its service offerings.

Walid Cherif, the co-head of Gulf Credit Partners stated: “This second transaction for the Fund reaffirms our strategy of identifying and investing in medium-sized businesses with capable management teams and strong growth prospects. We are tremendously pleased to have worked with a visionary Turkish entrepreneur who continues to build a business to international standards of management, internal controls and reporting. Orion’s capabilities are on par with large-scale global competitors and we are highly confident of their continued success.”

He added: “Structured credit investments, including mezzanine finance, remain an attractive choice for growing companies unable to access the traditional bank funding markets and in need of flexible financing solutions. The investment in Orion is a testament to the high-quality investment opportunities that exist in our target markets.”

Yalcin Karaman, the Founder and chairman of Orion said: "We are very pleased with our partnership with Gulf Capital. Gulf Capital has demonstrated a keen understanding of our business and shown considerable flexibility in providing acquisition finance, which provides the opportunity to execute our growth strategy. Orion is well positioned to continue building our presence in the cleaning, security, industrial catering and industrial laundry business.” He added: “At this stage of our firm’s development, the involvement of a well-known institutional investor will reaffirm our strategic values of transparency, governance and international best practices.”

Christopher Baines, co-head of Gulf Credit Partners, added: “This transaction is in line with our overall strategy to partner with promising companies and private equity firms in the MENA region and Turkey. The investment in Orion is particularly attractive as the business is well positioned to benefit from the continued growth of Turkish economy and domestic trends towards increased outsourcing of business services”. He also noted: “The Fund has had a very strong start in the first year of its operation. The two completed transactions have set promising benchmarks for the quality of investments and returns which we aim to deliver to our investors.”