Press Release

MediCapital Bank launches in London with a network in

London, November 21st MediCapital Bank launches officially today with a reception at The Mansion House in the City of London. MediCapital Bank is a wholesale and investment bank headquartered in London with a network of offices in Europe and Africa. As part of BMCE (Banque Marocaine du Commerce Extérieur), the leading private sector banking group in Morocco, MediCapital Bank provides an on-the-ground network of offices in fifteen African countries rising to eighteen countries during 2008 across North, West, East and Central Africa.

MediCapital Bank was authorised by the Authority (FSA) in May 2007 to operate three core divisions - corporate banking, advisory and financial markets – in order to provide international investors with direct access to opportunities in Africa, and corporate Africa with wider access to global capital markets.

Othman Benjelloun, Chairman of BMCE and MediCapital Holdings plc opened the reception. He said: “MediCapital Bank is creating a new model of collaborative finance in Africa with the prospect of sustainable long-term involvement. Through MediCapital Bank’s investment activities across Africa we will contribute to the development of infrastructure, the growth of education and play a part in its progressive migration to a formal economy. We intend to replicate the success of BMCE on a pan-African basis and therefore we also take responsibility for the environmental consequences of economic development in Africa.”

MediCapital Bank is wholly owned by MediCapital Holdings plc, itself a subsidiary of BMCE Bank. The Board of MediCapital Holdings Plc is made up of experienced individuals such as Peter Cooke, Jeremy Carver and Stanislas Yassukovich. The board members of MediCapital Bank, chaired by David Suratgar, represent a body of expertise in emerging markets and international banking including Bernard Asher, Jaloul Ayed, John Botts, Colin Fisher, Ian Plenderleith and Christopher Reeves.

David Suratgar, Chairman of MediCapital Bank commented: “We have brought together an outstanding group of individuals, both on the board and in the management team, in order to build our brand of investment and wholesale banking with a focus on Africa.”

The CEO of MediCapital Bank, Eric Aouani said: “We are seeing a significant appetite for Africa from international investors. We have long experience of originating and structuring deals in Africa and through our new base in London we now have the ability to distribute them widely to the international markets. We are opening a new horizon for emerging market investors - Africa is the last great show in town and we are making a long-term commitment to its future.”

MEDIA CONTACTS

Mark Lunn / Byron Ousey, Gavin Anderson & Co, Switchboard +44 (0) 20 7 554 1400 Mobile: +44 (0) 7775 992 309 / +44 (0) 7831580160 [email protected]

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About MediCapital Bank

MediCapital Bank is a newly established British bank, authorised by the Financial Services Authority, providing international institutions and investors with access to a wide range of growth opportunities in Africa. It also provides corporate Africa with direct access to international capital markets and high quality financial expertise. Primarily the bank will originate private sector deals that are typically below the threshold of international investment banks and beyond the scope of local banks.

MediCapital Bank is a full service investment and wholesale bank with an international network in Europe and Africa. Its core divisions are Corporate Banking, Advisory and Financial Markets, run out of London, Paris and Madrid. As part of Morocco’s leading private sector banking group, Banque Marocaine du Commerce Extérieur (BMCE), MediCapital Bank provides an on-the-ground network of offices in fifteen countries, rising to eighteen during 2008, across North, West, East and Central Africa. BMCE Bank recently fortified its African footprint by a strategic investment in the Group, headquartered in Luxembourg, with banking operations in eleven African countries.

MediCapital Bank - Corporate Banking division

The bank’s corporate banking division offers financial advisory, capital-raising and project/structured finance services to clients in Central, North and . They include financial institutions, corporations, organizations and governments.

Products and Services offered to all clients:  Capital-raising: MediCapital Bank helps its clients identify and raise the capital they need. The focus is on debt financing (loans, bond issues, etc.) where the bank can act as a lead arranger, put together a club deal or underwrite and syndicate the debt instrument in the market.  Structured and Project Finance: MediCapital Bank works with its clients to engineer the right financial instruments and structures that meet their needs. These instruments are always tailored to their specific requirements and to the realities of the market.  Structured Trade Finance: for soft and hard commodities  Guarantees: we facilitate the provision of bid and performance bonds through guarantees.

Products and Services specific to financial institutions:  Trade Finance  Guarantees  Correspondent Banking

2 MediCapital Bank - Financial Markets division

The bank’s Treasury, Trading and Capital Markets team develops creative and efficient solutions to help international clients gain exposure to various African markets, whether they are developed or nascent.

Most of our investors are closely geared towards:  Higher returns- compared to global benchmark indices  Geographic and asset diversification and decorrelation

Key products:  Credit trading, structuring and re-packaging  Sales and trading of equities  Money markets  Interest rates  Foreign Exchange

The team, made up of experienced professionals, works very closely with our local offices in order to provide investors with:

 Origination – bond issues, structured credits, equity block-trades, IPOs, pre-IPO placements  Opportunity Identification – day-by-day pulse from local markets  Efficient Execution – delivered by our local brokers  Research – locally sourced, delivered in English - relevant to our investors

The team also works closely with the corporate banking team in order to facilitate and execute transactions with their corporate & sovereign customers: including FX or interest rate hedges, IPO and pre IPO placements, and structured credit. Very often some of the corporate banking led transactions can be repackaged to provide a good match to our investors’ needs. All of these services are offered from a single point of contact, based in London and FSA regulated.

MediCapital Bank Advisory () division

The advisory team includes advice on the optimal capital structure, the identification of potential areas for value-creation and opportunities for partnerships and alliances through mergers and acquisitions.

About BMCE Bank

MediCapital Bank is 100% owned by MediCapital Holdings plc, a financial holding company incorporated in the United Kingdom. Established to ensure proper management independence from the bank’s parent, the holding company is in turn a wholly owned subsidiary of the Banque Marocaine du Commerce Extérieur (BMCE)

BMCE was established in 1959 and privatised in 1995, since when the controlling interest has been exercised by its chairman, Mr Othman Benjelloun. Other shareholders include Crédit Mutuel-CIC, Banco Espirito Santo and La Caja de Ahorros del Mediterráneo. BMCE is listed on the Casablanca Exchange with a market capitalization of $US 6 billion.

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BMCE is part of the Finance Com group, one of the largest private financial groups in Morocco, with diversified interests in banking, insurance and reinsurance, telecommunications, transport, media and technology, and other industrial activities.

Operating both domestically and internationally through a network of branches, BMCE has four main businesses: , corporate banking, investment banking and international banking.

In the course of its growth, BMCE has successfully established a network of offices in Africa, at first with its regional neighbours, and latterly more widely across French- speaking West and Central Africa. Having acquired a controlling stake in Bank of Africa, BMCE’s network has been further extended to include additional representation in East and West Africa, as well as in Madagascar. BMCE has been growing outside Africa, with offices in , Spain, Germany, the UK, Italy, Abu Dhabi and China.

Key officers and directors

Othman Benjelloun Chairman, BMCE Bank and MediCapital Holdings plc

Othman Benjelloun is the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Banque Marocaine du Commerce Extérieur, BMCE Bank - since its privatisation in 1995 - and the Chairman of Finance.Com, an operational holding involved in 4 sectors: Banking and parabanking, with BMCE Bank at its heart; Insurance including RMA Watanya insurance company; Telecom, Media and Technologies; and Industry.

In January 2005, Mr. Benjelloun was appointed as Chairman of MEDITELECOM, the first private mobile telephony operator in Morocco.

Mr. Benjelloun also chairs the Moroccan Banking Association. He is also counselor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, in Washington DC, chaired by Dr. Henry Kissinger.

Mr. Benjelloun was nominated Chancellor of Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane by the late King Hassan II, from 1998 to January 2004. The Board of Directors he chaired aimed to position the University as an elite international academic institution founded on excellence and merit. In 2006 Mr. Benjelloun was appointed as a Fellow of Kings College London.

In the field of Corporate Social Responsibility, Mr. Benjelloun is the founder of BMCE Bank Foundation, to which he assigned two main priorities: Education, particularly the fight against illiteracy, and Environmental protection.

Mr. Benjelloun was nominated Officier de L'Ordre du Trône of the Kingdom of Morocco and Commandeur de l'Etoile Polaire of the Kingdom of Sweden. He was also awarded La Médaille de Commandeur dans l'Ordre National du Lion of the Republic of Senegal, and recently received the decoration of “Encomienda de Numero de la Orden de Isabel la Catolica” of the Kingdom of Spain.

4 David Suratgar Chairman, MediCapital Bank

David Suratgar is a member of the Board of BMCE Bank and serves as Chairman of MediCapital Bank, and of the Advisory Board of Taylor-DeJongh Inc.

He is an international lawyer and banker, educated at Oxford and Columbia Universities, and a former senior lawyer at the World Bank and special advisor to European Investment Bank and to the Bank of England and European Commission.

He served as Director and Deputy Chairman of Morgan Grenfell and Deutsche Morgan Grenfell International, and is a director of Global Alumina Inc., Lead International, Fortune Funds Ltd. and Garsington Opera Ltd.

He continues to serve on advisory boards and as trustee of the School of Oriental African Studies, George Washington University and of the Major Projects Association and of the International Law Institute. He served on the Council of Chatham House (the Royal Institute of International Affairs) between 1996 and 2006.

He has also served as Counsel to the law firms of Surrey & Morse, Jones Day and Sullivan & Cromwell.

Jaloul Ayed Vice Chairman, MediCapital Bank

Before joining BMCE Group in 1998, Mr Jaloul Ayed spent 18 years of his career with Citibank. In 1980, five years after joining Citibank, he was appointed General Manager of the Tunisian subsidiary, which also included responsibility for the bank’s operations in Algeria and Libya.

In 1987 he was appointed Vice-President of Citicorp. In 1988 he pursued his international career as General Manager of the Corporate Bank in the United Arab Emirates. From 1990 to 1995, Mr Ayed was Managing Director of Citibank Maghreb in Casablanca and Citicorp/Citibank Country Corporate Officer for Morocco.

In 1996, Mr Ayed moved to the Capital Markets division at Citicorp International’s London offices, where he was Senior Banker in the Europe, Africa and Middle East Financing division.

Board Member and General Manager of BMCE Bank, Mr Ayed is also Chairman of the Management Board of BMCE Bank, and Executive Chairman of BMCE Capital, the investment banking arm of BMCE Group.

Jaloul Ayed is a graduate of Maryland University in the USA, where he obtained a Master’s degree in Economics in 1979.

Eric Aouani CEO MediCapital Bank

Eric Aouani began his career in 1990 with Banque Centrale Populaire, where amongst other assignments he was in charge of the launch of new financial services and instruments (mutual funds, privatisations and IPOs) before joining Citibank Tunis in 1994 as fixed

5 income and foreign exchange trader and then Citibank Maghreb as Country Treasurer responsible for capital markets activities.

In 1997 he joined Cargill Financial Markets in London as Emerging Markets Trader and Orginator/Structurer for Africa and the Middle East. He joined the BMCE group 18 months later, assuming responsibility for establishing BMCE Capital’s financial market activities. In 2002 he became Deputy General Manager of BMCE Capital, and a member of the BMCE Bank Management Board, actively involved in international development.

Since September 2005 he has been responsible for the creation and operations of MediCapital Bank plc.

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