History
EFG, also known as the Egyptian Financial Group, became the first investment banking firm in Egypt when it was established 1984. Hermes was founded in 1993 under the newly promulgated Capital Markets Law 95. EFG created and analyzed privatization plans for the Egyptian government for several years. In 1993, The Egyptian Financial Group and Hermes independently made a move into securities brokerage. The two companies competed and both companies brought many investment strategies that were common to the west to Egypt as several of the two firm's founders had Wall Street experience in corporate finance, sales & trading and asset management;, for example Hermes established the first equity index in all of Egypt.
In 1994, both Egyptian Financial Group and Hermes entered into asset management. Fueled by organic growth; the two firms also accounted for lead managing a majority of the privatization capital markets IPO's during 1995 and 1996. The two companies soon reached the point that further growth was not possible without a wider network of local and international clients on one hand, as well as the rising competitive threat of international investment banks in the progressively more active Egyptian market in terms of investment baking privatization transactions as well as higher trading volumes . These factors led to a merger in 1996 between EFG and Hermes.
Read more about this topic: EFG-Hermes Holding Company
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“History ... is, indeed, little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.
But what experience and history teach is this—that peoples and governments have never learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“They are a sort of post-house,where the Fates
Change horses, making history change its tune,
Then spur away o’er empires and o’er states,
Leaving at last not much besides chronology,
Excepting the post-obits of theology.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)
“Jesus Christ belonged to the true race of the prophets. He saw with an open eye the mystery of the soul. Drawn by its severe harmony, ravished with its beauty, he lived in it, and had his being there. Alone in all history he estimated the greatness of man.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)