Alpha Oryx transfers 22% Aramex stake to Abu Dhabi Ports Group

ADQ bought shares in the courier company through Alpha in September

Abu Dhabi Ports Group now controls a 22.3% stake in Aramex. Silvia Razgova / The National

Alpha Oryx, a company related to investment holding conglomerate ADQ, has transferred a 22.32 per cent stake in Aramex to Abu Dhabi Ports Group.

ADQ, one of the region’s biggest holding companies, took the stake in Aramex in September, building on its portfolio of strategic investments. Alpha acquired the shares through a series of on-market transactions and an off-market special deal.

The stake in the biggest courier company in the Middle East is now controlled by ADQ subsidiary Abu Dhabi Ports Group, which did not previously own shares in Aramex, Alpha said in statement to the Dubai Financial Market.

In October, France's parcel delivery company GeoPost, a holding company owned by Le Groupe La Poste, bought a 20.15 per cent stake in Aramex. The acquisition of 295 million shares was valued at Dh1.4 billion ($381m), according to a filing on the DFM at the time.

Aramex was founded by Fadi Ghandour in 1982 and was the first company from the Arab world to list on the Nasdaq. It later delisted in 2002 and went public again in 2005 and is currently listed on the Dubai Financial Market. Mr Ghandour, the executive chairman of Wamda Capital, a venture capital fund that invests in technology-enabled companies across the Arab world, sold his remaining shares in Aramex in 2016.

In November, Aramex said the global economic recovery and higher oil prices will boost the growth of logistics and freight-forwarding business in 2022, as it reported a 47 per cent jump in third-quarter net profit to Dh67.8m, compared with the same period the previous year.