The project is backed by Magrabi Hospitals & Centers, a privately owned company established in 1955 in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia which currently operates 25 hospitals and medical centers across the MENA region in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, United Arab Emirates, Oman, Qatar, and Yemen. Founded in 1955, Magrabi has evolved from a small eye Hospital in Jeddah, the first private specialized facility in the Middle East and Africa to be one of the largest medical care networks in the region. Magrabi is known for excellence in the Eye, ENT and Dentistry care fields due to its strong track record, highly skilled internationally trained doctors, exceptional services, state-of-the-art technology and ultra modern facilities which offer world-class healthcare.

The total project cost is estimated at $100 million, which will fund the expansion of operations in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Yemen, and Dubai. The proposed IFC investment is an A loan for IFC’s own account of up to $25 million and an equity investment of up to $15 million to fund the expansion program in Egypt and Yemen.

45.0 million (USD)

Product Line	IFC Investment (million USD)
Risk Management
Guarantee
Loan	25.0
Equity	20.0

* These investment figures are indicative

Magrabi’s existing locations in Saudi Arabia, Dubai, Yemen and Egypt will be expanded and are centrally located in their respective cities. The new hospitals in Yemen and Egypt will be located in urban areas that are easily accessible by public and private transportation.

The expansion of Magrabi’s services in the MENA region will contribute to:

- expanding access to comprehensive ophthalmologic services, which is experiencing high levels of demand and low levels of supply;
- relieve some of the growing burden currently placed on the public health system;
- offering increased employment opportunities to local healthcare professionals, and other in a superior healthcare environment;
- providing a benchmark of service quality that will potentially raise the general standards of ophthalmologic care elsewhere in the region;
- expand the supply of qualified nursing professional in Egypt through the Group’s recent JV with the British University in Cairo to establish a nursing school;
- expanding healthcare human capital in the MENA region by offering summer training programs for lab and medical record specialists, nurses and doctors; and
- expanding ophthalmologic care to low-income populations by offering both low-cost services at select hospitals and providing pro bono ophthalmologic services to the extremely low-income populations in rural areas via the Al-Noor foundation.

IFC’s contribution to this project is expected to:

- help stimulate the delivery of high quality ophthalmologic services in MENA;
- support south-south investments amongst MENA countries;
- help establish benchmarks for delivery of private health and ophthalmologic services in the region; and
- help the Group obtain long-term funding for greenfield projects.

Magrabi is a category B project according to IFC''s environmental and social review procedure. A summary of IFC’s environmental and social review findings for the project including the rationale for the B categorization will shortly be (is) publicly available in the Environmental and Social Review Summary (ESRS). The Environmental and Social Action Plan (ESAP), which is attached to the ESRS, contains specific tasks that the client will undertake to mitigate perceived risks and impacts from the project, and to ensure compliance with IFC’s Performance Standards.

The main EHS aspects of the proposed projects are: site acquisition and characteristics; environmental engineering and safety engineering principles during the sitting and construction phase, air emissions and their treatment; potable water supply and treatment; liquid effluent treatment and disposal; waste management including medical and bio-hazardous waste; worker health and safety including training and housekeeping; disinfection, sterilization, hygiene and implementation of good hospital management practices required to prevent infections among patients and employees; opportunities for energy conservation and efficiency as well as waste minimization; and fire and life safety including emergency response.

In addition, the hospital will be required to develop and implement a corporate-wide, integrated environmental and health and safety management system. Issues such as emergency care for the poor and disadvantaged and the role of the hospital in the community will also be assessed during the supervision of the project.