Who said nobody’s going to invest in consumer plays this year? Private equity outfit Feather Invest has acquired a 75% stake in Arafa El Sergani Halawa and Tahini, the company that owns the 145-year-old Arafa El Gamea brand name. Feather did not disclose the transaction value, but flagged that it “has allocated an approx. investment cost of EGP 95 m to be deployed in its new venture with the Arafa family and attracted top notch talent from local and regional multi-national firms to lead the business. The firm has also tagged a select group of similar industrial operations in which it intends to deploy an approx. amount of EGP 150 m in the coming 18-24 months,” it said in an emailed statement (pdf). You may not have heard of Feather Invest, but odds are good you’ll recognize at least one of the firm’s founders, where bold-faced names include SMG boss Ibrahim El Ghattas (think: Porsche and Harley Davidson in Egypt), Khaled Ismail (the prominent angel investor and venture capitalist), and Seif Fahmy (Booz Allen and the Egyptian National Competitiveness Council).

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