CDC Group has appointed David Osborne as investment director.
Osborne joins CDC’s equity investments team, which provides capital directly to businesses across Africa and South Asia, focusing on sectors that have good potential for job creation.
Osborne has over 25 years of experience of private equity investing in both European and Asian markets.
Most recently, he was managing director of the investment firm CapAsia, which focuses on infrastructure investment in Central and South-East Asia. He led the firm’s Islamic Infrastructure Fund, making investments in the Islamic countries of emerging Asia including Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Malaysia.
Before joining CapAsia, he worked for 3i for 25 years where he was a partner and, most recently, ran the firm’s Asian buyout team from Singapore. Osborne was previously based in 3i’s London office where he focused on opportunities across Europe, helping to raise their first pan-European fund in the late 1990s.
Mark Pay, CDC’s managing director for equity investments, says: “David brings with him vast experience of private equity and infrastructure investing in both developed and developing countries and I’m delighted he is joining us. Since setting up our equity investments team from scratch two years ago we now have twenty-two investment professionals getting CDC’s capital to work directly in businesses in Africa and South Asia. David’s insight and experience will help us to continue making commercially successful investments with the highest possible development impact.”
Sameh Shenouda, an investment director in the equity investments team has been appointed CDC’s head of infrastructure. Shenouda will lead a team of six investment professionals looking at infrastructure opportunities in Africa and South Asia, with a particular focus on power assets.
Shenouda re-joined CDC in 2013 having worked for the organisation between 2001 and 2005 in Egypt, leading the first management buyout in the country. More recently, he was natural gas industries director at Orascom Construction Industries where he headed the development of a USD2.3bn ammonia/urea fertilizers plant in Algeria. He started his career in investment banking where he worked for Morgan Stanley’s Egypt affiliate for five years.
