The UAE’s biggest telecoms operator, e&, formerly known as Etisalat, has increased its stake in British company Vodafone Group to 13 per cent as part of its international diversification strategy.
The Abu Dhabi-based company now owns an aggregate 3,537.7 million shares in the UK operator, with the transaction executed on Thursday, e& said on Friday in a regulatory filing to the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange, where its shares are traded.
The financial details of the transaction were not disclosed.
"The investment rationale is unchanged from our announcement on May 14, 2022," e& said.
The UAE company first acquired about 2.76 billion shares, or a 9.8 per cent stake in Vodafone, for $4.4 billion in May, before increasing its shareholding to 11 per cent in early December.
Last month, it raised its stake to 12 per cent as part of efforts to "obtain significant exposure to a global leader, and leverage potential commercial partnership and realise future return on our investment”.
E& is embarking on a strategy of acquiring assets of telecoms companies abroad to broaden its revenue base.
It is pursuing a two-pronged strategy of expanding its telecoms asset base, plus integrating emerging technologies and supporting the rapidly expanding start-up community, chief executive Hatem Dowidar told The National at last year's Gitex Global.
The telecoms industry is going through a major transformation, especially with the advent of new technologies that operators are trying to integrate into their operations to add new revenue lines as competition intensifies.
Etisalat, which rebranded as e& in February last year, is in the process of transforming itself into a global technology investment conglomerate.
The company, which currently has operations in 16 countries across the Middle East, Africa and Asia serving more than 156 million customers, has expanded abroad and solidified its stakes in overseas markets in recent quarters.
In December, e& signed a joint venture agreement with South Korea's Bespin Global to set up a business that will provide public cloud services in the Middle East, Turkey, Africa and Pakistan. The two companies each contributed $10 million in initial capital.
In October, e& launched a $250 million venture capital fund as part of its new investment unit, e& capital, to support the technology start-up ecosystem.
In the same month, e& enterprise completed the 100 per cent acquisition of Smartworld, a technology solutions provider and systems integrator in the UAE.
In 2021, the company raised its ownership in Etisalat Investment North Africa to 100 per cent, increasing its effective ownership in Morocco's Maroc Telecom Group to 53 per cent, from 48.4 per cent.
Our legal consultant
Name: Dr Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
The five pillars of Islam
1. Fasting
2. Prayer
3. Hajj
4. Shahada
5. Zakat
The End of Loneliness
Benedict Wells
Translated from the German by Charlotte Collins
Sceptre
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Global institutions: BlackRock and KKR
US-based BlackRock is the world's largest asset manager, with $5.98 trillion of assets under management as of the end of last year. The New York firm run by Larry Fink provides investment management services to institutional clients and retail investors including governments, sovereign wealth funds, corporations, banks and charitable foundations around the world, through a variety of investment vehicles.
KKR & Co, or Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, is a global private equity and investment firm with around $195 billion of assets as of the end of last year. The New York-based firm, founded by Henry Kravis and George Roberts, invests in multiple alternative asset classes through direct or fund-to-fund investments with a particular focus on infrastructure, technology, healthcare, real estate and energy.
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Dubai World Cup factbox
Most wins by a trainer: Godolphin’s Saeed bin Suroor(9)
Most wins by a jockey: Jerry Bailey(4)
Most wins by an owner: Godolphin(9)
Most wins by a horse: Godolphin’s Thunder Snow(2)
The biog
Name: Dhabia Khalifa AlQubaisi
Age: 23
How she spends spare time: Playing with cats at the clinic and feeding them
Inspiration: My father. He’s a hard working man who has been through a lot to provide us with everything we need
Favourite book: Attitude, emotions and the psychology of cats by Dr Nicholes Dodman
Favourit film: 101 Dalmatians - it remind me of my childhood and began my love of dogs
Word of advice: By being patient, good things will come and by staying positive you’ll have the will to continue to love what you're doing
Anti-semitic attacks
The annual report by the Community Security Trust, which advises the Jewish community on security , warned on Thursday that anti-Semitic incidents in Britain had reached a record high.
It found there had been 2,255 anti-Semitic incidents reported in 2021, a rise of 34 per cent from the previous year.
The report detailed the convictions of a number of people for anti-Semitic crimes, including one man who was jailed for setting up a neo-Nazi group which had encouraged “the eradication of Jewish people” and another who had posted anti-Semitic homemade videos on social media.
If you go
The flights Etihad (www.etihad.com) and Spice Jet (www.spicejet.com) fly direct from Abu Dhabi and Dubai to Pune respectively from Dh1,000 return including taxes. Pune airport is 90 minutes away by road.
The hotels A stay at Atmantan Wellness Resort (www.atmantan.com) costs from Rs24,000 (Dh1,235) per night, including taxes, consultations, meals and a treatment package.
Scoreline
Saudi Arabia 1-0 Japan
Saudi Arabia Al Muwallad 63’
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