Post-Revolution Libyan Africa Investment Portfolio

Ahmed A. Kashadah, Managing Director of Libya Africa Investment Portfolio (LAP), talks about re-opening of LAP after the revolution.

“When we first came to LAP the building was looted, so we had a serious loss of documentation. Many documents were stolen and other documents just disappeared, we don’t know if they had been stolen before freeing Tripoli or after. We came on September 18th and Tripoli was freed around August 21st, so during that time so many things happened here. I have to admit I have to thank LAP employees because they came here at the end of August and beginning of September to protect the building and try to recover whatever they could. They did a good job at getting back some of the stolen information and stolen assets, but I think the building was unprotected for 10 days and so many people had access to the building. It was a serious issue,” says Kashadah.

He adds: “Another major issue was that LAP had no clear financial statements; there were attempts in 2006 through to 2009 to make financial statements but they were audited by the government who said they did not reflect fair value. So there was no solid financial statement to start from. We had serious work to try to build the financial statement of LAP; we built on some other peoples plans to try to build LAP’s financial statement. We looked at steps taken by previous management to try to solve this issue so that we could have a financial statement that reflects the true position of LAP’s position. We formed a central committee called the financial statement committee, with 6 or 7 teams that look at certain assets, subsidiaries, loans, fixed assets and report back to the central committee. We managed to close the financial statements from 2006 to 2009 to be able to audit them now with the government auditing body and we have the financial statements for 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013 up to date. We are now talking with the top auditing firms to be able to audit them. We came along way from not understanding the portfolio to now knowing what we have.”

About LAP:

Libya Africa Investment Portfolio (LAP), established by the General People’s Committee Resolution 15 in 2006, dictates that the LAP is owned by the Libyan Investment Authority (LIA), which manages the vast majority of the nation’s oil reserves . LAP is run jointly by the Board of Trustees, chaired by the Prime Minister and LIA’s Board of Directors.

The Authority (LIA) seeks to expand investments outside Libya through this portfolio, diversify, and to achieve long-term returns that would develop the activities of the portfolio on different sectors and in various locations and investments degrees in the field of finance, tourism, telecommunications, oil and gas, agriculture and quarries.

Assets: US$ 5.3 billion