In brief

KKR has announced that KKR MENA has been granted a license by the Dubai Financial Services Authority to operate from the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC). Abdulla Al Awar, Led by Makram Azar, Managing Director and Head of Middle East and North Africa, KKR MENA is a newly formed subsidiary of KKR, especially created to do business from the DIFC. Its area of operations will cover the entire Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. KKR MENA Limited will pursue private equity and infrastructure transactions in the MENA region and engage in the distribution of various KKR products.

• Shares in French investment company Eurazeo slid by around six per cent last week, after the group posted a fall in sales and net asset value. Eurazeo says its net asset value per share has fallen to €44.2 at the end of the first quarter, from €53.4 per share at the end of 2008. Shares in rival investment group Wendel dipped 0.5 percent. “Usually, one prices in a discount of 30 percent to an investment company’s shares in relation to its net asset value, which is why the market has pushed down Eurazeo,” says a Paris-based fund manager.

• Standard Bank, Africa’s biggest bank by assets, plans to hire up to five people for a new private equity team in Brazil, betting on growth in Latin America’s largest economy, the bank’s Brazil chief executive said in an interview. Standard Bank will soon hire the head of private equity, who will bring a team of three or four people onboard, said Fabio Solferini. The bank has set aside US$250 million for the private equity unit, he said. “Brazil is a target country for us and because of that, we are expanding all of the bank’s platform,” Solferini told Reuters.