What France wants to do in Morocco
The French fund Meridiam wants to acquire 40% of the capital of the “new Suez” in Morocco. The point of Giuseppe Gagliano
Already well established in sub-Saharan Africa, the French investment fund Meridiam is once again seeking to penetrate Morocco. Together with the American Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP) and the French Caisse des dépôts et consignations (CDC), Meridiam intends to acquire 40% of the capital of the "new Suez", the entity that will consolidate all Suez activities excluded from the merger with Veolia .
Among these is Lydec, the Casablanca water and electricity agency. While his situation was already complex, his future is no longer assured: the Moroccan government has announced the non-renewal of the delegated management contracts assigned to Lydec, but also to Redal and Amendis (subsidiaries of Veolia in Tangier and Rabat) after their expiry in 2027-2028. Instead, the Ministry of the Interior intends to create “regional multiservice companies” (SMR).
However, the implementation of the MRS could create opportunities for Lydec and Meridiam: their precise contours remain to be defined and these new structures could rely on the private sector for their technical management, but also for the financing of their infrastructures.
More generally, opportunities in Morocco should multiply for specialist infrastructure funds. The financial bill for 2022 gives pride of place to public-private partnerships (PPPs), and Mohammed VI himself has called for the multiplication of "social" PPPs to build hospitals, courts and other public service infrastructure, whose implementation and financing the state is struggling to control. A Mohammed VI Investment Fund should also be created to facilitate public-private co-investments, although this issue has gotten a bit bogged down.
Other public operators, such as the National Airport Office (ONDA), are considering privatizing the management of certain assets. Meridiam will have the means to achieve its ambitions: in 2021 it raised more than 5 billion euros, of which over 500 million euros under the Meridiam Infrastructure Africa Fund II (MIAF II).
Internally, Meridiam's operations in the kingdom are overseen by its African director, Mathieu Peller, and its continent development director, Samuel Goldstein. To familiarize themselves with the Moroccan environment, they hired the services of the consulting and financial engineering firm Add Equatio, based in Rabat and headed by Nicolas Kepel. This PPP expert has worked extensively for Jet Contractors, Nabil Rtabi's construction group. Most importantly, he co-founded the PPP Morocco Club, which he continues to lead.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/francia-marocco-infrastrutture-meridiam/ on Wed, 10 Nov 2021 07:42:38 +0000.