B R Shetty, the Indian businessman and philanthropist who recently bought Travelex for a reported £1 billion (Dh6.15bn), says he is likely to open new stores and may restart Travelex’s remittances business.
“We plan to be in 50 countries in two years’ time,” said Mr Shetty, who is also the chief executive of UAE Exchange. “We’re mainly expecting to expand to richer countries in Asia and Africa.”
Travelex currently has branches in 32 countries, as well as 1,500 outlets.
The two exchange organisations will “not immediately” merge and “will be run independently”, he said. Mr Shetty said he would “not remove anyone at Travelex management”. But he did say there would probably be “opportunities for both businesses to work more closely together”.
He also said the two had different target markets. “UAE Exchange caters for lower and middle-class customers – Travelex is for middle-class and upper-class customers.
“I bought it to expand it, not to reap a short-term reward from it,” he adds. “I’m a long-term investor – I’m not a private equity company. I bought Travelex to expand and nurture the company.”
Travelex recorded an annual loss of £186.4 million, against revenues of £695m at the end of 2013. The company’s financial statements said that was largely due to the debt loaded on to the company when it was acquired by the private equity company Apax.
Mr Shetty’s acquisition was supported by Centurion Investments, the Abu Dhabi investment firm, which contributed funding. Mr Shetty said Centurion’s role was “mainly financial”, but that he would “take advantage of the advisory services that they have to offer”. Mr Shetty was advised in the transaction by Standard Chartered Bank, Evercore, Mena Financial Partners and Linklaters.
An independent public offering for UAE Exchange would be delayed for at least two years, Mr Shetty said.
“We’re still planning to operate the IPO … but we don’t need cash – we have enough cash to sustain the business. Whenever we want to expand further, we’ll go to an IPO,” he said.
Centurion is owned and controlled by Saeed bin Butti Al Qubaisi. The company owns a 40 per cent stake in NMC Healthcare, which Mr Shetty founded. NMC was floated in London in 2012 at a market valuation of £117m. It currently has a market capitalisation of £899m. Mr Shetty retains a 20.3 per cent stake in the business.
The remittances industry is expanding at a fast clip, with total remittances expected to grow at 9 per cent per year, rising from US$414bn in 2013 to $540bn in 2016, according to the World Bank.
New technologies are changing how remittances companies do business. Facebook recently acquired the British start-up Transferwise, started by two Estonian immigrants to the UK, which partners local senders and receivers of currency instead of transferring money abroad. With 100 million Facebook users in India, the company could draw on a large pool of customers for any new money transfer business.
But Mr Shetty is confident that technology will help his remittances business. He points to instant money transfer services as an example of how innovation has benefited his business.
“We have our own innovations,” he said. “New technologies can only benefit the transfer industry.”
abouyamourn@thenational.ae
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MATCH INFO
Al Jazira 3 (O Abdulrahman 43', Kenno 82', Mabkhout 90 4')
Al Ain 1 (Laba 39')
Red cards: Bandar Al Ahbabi (Al Ain)
Dubai Bling season three
Cast: Loujain Adada, Zeina Khoury, Farhana Bodi, Ebraheem Al Samadi, Mona Kattan, and couples Safa & Fahad Siddiqui and DJ Bliss & Danya Mohammed
Rating: 1/5
Benefits of first-time home buyers' scheme
- Priority access to new homes from participating developers
- Discounts on sales price of off-plan units
- Flexible payment plans from developers
- Mortgages with better interest rates, faster approval times and reduced fees
- DLD registration fee can be paid through banks or credit cards at zero interest rates
The years Ramadan fell in May
Low turnout
Two months before the first round on April 10, the appetite of voters for the election is low.
Mathieu Gallard, account manager with Ipsos, which conducted the most recent poll, said current forecasts suggested only two-thirds were "very likely" to vote in the first round, compared with a 78 per cent turnout in the 2017 presidential elections.
"It depends on how interesting the campaign is on their main concerns," he told The National. "Just now, it's hard to say who, between Macron and the candidates of the right, would be most affected by a low turnout."
The Land between Two Rivers: Writing in an Age of Refugees
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What is THAAD?
It is considered to be the US' most superior missile defence system.
Production:
It was first created in 2008.
Speed:
THAAD missiles can travel at over Mach 8, so fast that it is hypersonic.
Abilities:
THAAD is designed to take out projectiles, namely ballistic missiles, as they are on their downward trajectory towards their target, otherwise known as the "terminal phase".
Purpose:
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Range:
THAAD can target projectiles both inside and outside of the Earth's atmosphere, at an altitude of 93 miles above the Earth's surface.
Creators:
Lockheed Martin was originally granted the contract to develop the system in 1992. Defence company Raytheon sub-contracts to develop other major parts of the system, such as ground-based radar.
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