Libya’s financial exodus planting Malta roots

Khalid Albibas, the former chief commercial officer of the Libyan telephone operator Al Madar, has founded in Malta a firm named Masarat Company, to specialize in computer services and telecommunications.

Al Madar is a subsidiary of the LPTIC (Libyan Post, Telecommunication and Information Technology Holding Company) run by Faisel Gergab, who recently moved operations over to Malta.

The LPTIC is the holding company that controls all of Libya’s state-dominated ITC companies: Libyana, LTT, Hatif Libya, Al Madar, Al Jeel, Al Jadeed, LITC and Bareed Libya.

Maghreb Confidential reports that Al Madar announced recently it was re-establishing its mobile network in eastern Libya, a sign of rapprochement to the Tobruk government.

LPTIC boss Gergab set up a new subsidiary – LPTIC Services – in Malta earlier in February. LPTIC controls Libya’s telecoms operators, at least on paper, and monitors all contracts to install optic fibre and wireless networks.

The company set up its offices at Oilinvest House on Triq il-Falkun, in San Gwann, where the Tamoil Africa Holdings and Chempetrol operations are already housed. They are both subsidiaries of the Libyan Investment Authority (LIA) on whose board Gergab sits.

Gergab also set up the Libyan Investment Authority’s sovereign fund LIA Advisory in Malta, back in December last year. The other directors are Osama Siala, the new chairman of LIA appointed by the internationally-recognised government in Tobruk, Hassan Ahmed Bouhadi, and managing director Ahmed Ali Attiga, a former World Bank official.