Exit fever

ENAR

This article is part of an Executive special report on entrepreneurship. Read more stories as they’re published here, or pick up November’s issue at newsstands in Lebanon.   The idea of a successful entrepreneur re-investor has been verified everywhere. It’s a virus,” says Hala Fadel, chair of the MIT Enterprise Forum for the Pan Arab Region. “Look at [Maktoob’s Samih Toukan], he started Jabbar [Internet Group] afterwards and had a very successful exit in the region. And everywhere in the world, people who have succeeded will re-invest again.” There is a good argument to make for exits. That is, for entrepreneurs to start, scale and eventually sell their companies to larger conglomerates, to effectively sell their shares and loosen up cash to invest in new ideas in the ecosystem. Exits are often looked at as the holy grail of business, as the true measure of entrepreneurial success. “That is what