However, the real tragedy of the LAP GreenN’s decline is that it could so easily have been prevented, if the company had only heeded advice of the Libyan Investment Authority (LIA).
The LIA’s repeated efforts to save LAP GreenN
The LIA in Tripoli has gone to huge lengths in its attempts to save LAP GreenN over the last five years.
This began in 2012 when the LIA’s then-Chairman, Mohsen Derregia, offered staged funding to LAP GreenN in exchange for meaningful reforms. But of the US$208 million of assets – including US$133 million of cash – provided to LAIP (under its General Manager Ahmed Kashadah) and LAP GreenN (under its General Manager Wafic Shater), US$90 million is still unaccounted for.
This kind of mismanagement on the part of the LAP GreenN’s leadership has been a recurring theme, and a major obstacle to progress. It was again in evidence two years later, at a time when the LIA’s Chairman AbdulMagid Breish had commissioned respected international consultancies Oliver Wyman and Deloitte to analyse and review LAP GreenN's business plan and financial model.
Both the plan and the model were found to be severely deficient. Showing a strategic clarity and business discipline wholly lacking within LAP GreenN, the LIA board refused to provide the company with a US$400 million loan that it clearly wouldn’t be able to repay, and instead equipped the company with a new strategy.