Turkey’s Hayat is borrowing to expand in Egypt: Emirates NBD Egypt has signed a EUR 30 mn medium-term loan agreement with Turkish sanitary product company Hayat’s local subsidiary Hayat Egypt to help it finance a new USD 70 mn tissue factory in Ain Sokhna, the lender said in a statement (pdf) Monday. No further details about the loan were provided.

ICYMI- We first got wind of the planned Hayat tissue factory last month during a trade delegation trip to Turkey to drum up investments. Hayat also talked up the possibility of a USD 35 million industrial detergents plant, a diaper facility of an unspecified size, and of opening a paper factory that uses our abundant date palms as the main raw material.

This is good news for Egypt’s exports: Hayat Egypt’s new tissue plant will be a “exportation hub of Hayat in the region” that “100% serve[s]” exports and will contribute USD 80 mn to our annual export tally, according to Hayat Egypt’s general manager Senol Keserlioglu. The new factory is also set to create 80 new direct jobs. The statement did not give a date for when we can expect to see the factory up and running, but Keserlioglu said earlier this month that the company had a new factory in the works set to open in late 2024 and another in 2025.

We knew that some Hayat investments were in the pipeline: Earlier this month, local media reported that the company was boosting its Egyptian subsidiary’s capital 20% to USD 200 mn and would invest a further USD 120 mn in its operations here by the end of 2025. In July, we also heard that the Turkish sanitary products company was planning to pump in USD 210 mn to establish three additional production lines in Egypt.

Hayat ain't new to the Egyptian market: Hayat already employs 1.5k people and has invested a total of USD 550 mn in its operations here. And you’ve probably seen or bought many of their products, which include Molfix baby diapers, Molped feminine care products, Papia toilet tissues, and Familia tissues.

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