Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) transactions which have been closed by Qatari investors in March stood at $139.3m, according to a KPMG report.
In its monthly Merger & Acquisition Deals tracker for the GCC region, KPMG noted that two M&A deals which have been closed by Qatari investors in March targeted the telecom, media, and telecom (TMT) as well as the consumer and retail sectors.
These include the $121m Series D funding led by Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) for Turkey-origin and Singapore-based Insider PTE, and Baladna’s $18.3m acquisition deal for a 5 percent stake in Egypt’s leading dairy company Juhayna Food Industries.
Insider PTE, an artificial intelligence (AI) company has become one of the most recent tech startups to join the ‘unicorn club’ after the successful Series D funding round led by QIA has raised the company’s valuation to $1.22bn. The company serves customers worldwide with brands such as Toyota Motor and Vodafone Group among its clients.
Meanwhile, Baladna has also recently announced it has acquired a 5 percent stake in the Egyptian Juhayna Food Industries Company, with total shares acquired amounting to about 47.117 million shares.
The company also stated that its ‘investment decision was based on a very accurate analysis of the market that the company seeks to enter the Egyptian market, which is a large and promising market for the food and beverage sector with a population of more than 100 million people’.
According to the KPMG report, there were a total of 61 announced or closed M&A deals which involved a GCC target or acquirer in March. As many as 48 deals included acquirers from the GCC, while 37 deals included a GCC target.
Majority of the M&A deals targeted the TMT sector with 19 deals, followed by other target sectors including financial services (16 deals), consumer and retail (12 deals), industry and materials (8deals), healthcare (4 deals), and real estate (2 deals).
Majority of the acquirers came from Saudi Arabia with 18 deals, followed by the UAE (24 deals), Qatar (2 deals), Kuwait (2 deals), Oman (1 deal), and Bahrain (1 deal).
The Saudi Agricultural and Livestock Investment Company’s (SALIC) $1.24bn deal to acquire 35.43 percent of Singapore’s financial services firm Olam Agri Holdings has topped the list of M&A deals from the GCC region in March.
