The Nuqul Group (the Group, Nuqul,or the company) is a regional manufacturing conglomerate headquartered in Amman, Jordan. The Group is headed by Mr. Elia Nuqul and consists of a conglomeration of 27 companies operating in 9 countries and selling in 47 markets. The Group is a longstanding client of IFC. The Group is family owned, with Mr. Elia Nuqul, founder, his eldest son, Ghassan, and younger son, Marwan, having the largest individual shares.

The proposed project is to support the Group’s 2004-2008 $150+ million core business investment program. IFC’ financing involves a corporate loan of up to $25 million to finance the project.

25.0 million (USD)

Product Line	IFC Investment (million USD)
Risk Management
Guarantee
Loan	25.0
Equity

* These investment figures are indicative

The project is regional and it comprises the Middle East Region.

The Group’s existing facilities generally comply with both Jordanian and Egyptian EHS requirements and the requisite laws and regulations as well as the IFC environment and social policies and the environment, health and safety guidelines. Further agreed mitigation measures have been discussed and agreed with the Group. This is a Category B project according to IFC’s Procedure for Environmental and Social Review of Projects because a limited number of specific environmental and social impacts may result which can be avoided or mitigated by adhering to generally recognized performance standards, guidelines or design criteria. The review of this project consisted of appraising technical, environmental, worker health and safety, labor and community information provided by the project sponsor as well as site visits to the paper mill and associated production facilities in Amman, Jordan and Cairo, Egypt. The following environmental, worker health and safety, labor and community impacts and issues associated with the project sponsor’s current activities as well as the potential impacts of the proposed expansion program were analyzed:

- the compliance of the Nuqul Group with Jordanian and Egyptian environmental and worker health and safety (EHS) requirements as well as IFC’s EHS requirements;
- the commitment of the Nuqul Group to quality and to international EHS performance including ISO (Quality and Environmental Management) and OHSAS (Occupational Health and Safety) certifications; and
- the commitment of the Nuqul Group to their labor force and the community.
Location of environmental documents In locally affected community
Environmental documentation will be made available at the following locations:

- Manufacturing locations in Jordan in both Sahab and Urenibeh areas.
- Manufacturing locations in Egypt in Giza area.
- Local newspapers in both Jordan and Egypt.

The project will adopt world-class engineering and equipment technology that will lower production cost and maintain the highest quality. The Project will also allow Nuqul and third party converters to avoid imports of jumbo rolls and the associated higher transport costs. The Project will create many job opportunities in the Middle East; for example, the Al Sindian expansion will create approximately 100 jobs at average wages that are almost three times the per capita GDP in Egypt.

IFC’s role involves the following components:

- IFC’s corporate loan would be supporting the financing needs of a Middle East regional player in its strategy to grow its operations in challenging markets. Moreover, IFC’s flexible long-term financing at the corporate level would help the Group in its efforts to consolidate ownership of the core business companies which would require restructuring of intercompany guarantees, and increasing the average maturity of the Group’s debt to have a better-matched asset/liability position

- Nuqul’s management has expressed strong interest in IFC’s value-added approach to corporate governance.

IFC’s strength in corporate governance is a strong and timely fit with the needs of this family controlled conglomerate looking to go public.