Getir founders sue Mubadala for $700mn over break-up of assets - #AbuDhabi #UAE

Getir founders sue Mubadala for $700mn over break-up of assets

The founders of food delivery start-up Getir are suing Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala Investment Company for at least $700mn over claims the fund did not hand over promised assets when the company was restructured. 

Getir’s co-founders Nazim Salur and Serkan Borançılı claim that they have “suffered significant loss” after Mubadala allegedly reneged on a 2024 agreement to transfer a group of assets to them, including a valuable tech finance app, Getir Finance, according to a lawsuit filed with London’s High Court on Friday. 

The claim for breach of contract and conspiracy comes as Mubadala announced last week that it was selling Getir’s food delivery business in Turkey to Uber for $335mn.  

Founded in Turkey in 2015, Getir, which means “bring” in Turkish, was one of the pioneers of the food and grocery delivery businesses that boomed during the Covid-19 pandemic. It was valued at about $12bn in 2022, but rising interest rates and falling technology stock prices damped investor appetite in subsequent years. 

In June 2024, the company said that it had agreed a restructuring with Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund Mubadala to lead a $250mn cash injection and acquire majority control of its Turkish grocery operations.  

Under the plans, the remaining assets would be housed in a standalone business, including its FreshDirect grocery service in New York, in which the founders would have a controlling stake. 

However, Salur and Borançılı allege in the lawsuit that only the most unprofitable assets — FreshDirect and the online shopping platform n11 — were ever transferred. They claim they are still owed assets such as Getir Finance, which was valued at $510mn last year, and that various Mubadala entities have conspired against them to breach the agreement. 

“The assets which were supposed to have been hived out and transferred to their control were never so transferred (save for the two most unprofitable and liability-laden entities),” lawyers for the founders said in the claim. 

Instead, Mubadala made them an offer in December 2024 that “deviated considerably from the terms the parties had agreed . . . and was on terms which were highly disadvantageous to the founders”. 

Mubadala declined to comment. The sovereign wealth fund is yet to file a defence to the claim. 

Getir, which once had a partnership with Tottenham Hotspur and was emblazoned on the Premier League club’s training kit, previously had operations in the US and Europe, including in the UK, Germany and the Netherlands, before scaling back.

#SaudiArabia Taps Debt Market Veteran Fahad Al-Saif to Lead FDI Drive - Bloomberg

Saudi Arabia Taps Debt Market Veteran Fahad Al-Saif to Lead FDI Drive - Bloomberg

About a decade ago, Saudi Arabia picked a veteran banker to help set up a debt-market program that’s since transformed the kingdom into one of the most prolific bond issuers globally. His next task is to help Riyadh draw in overseas cash and triple annual foreign direct investment to $100 billion by 2030.

Fahad Al-Saif has become the new face of the Gulf nation’s push for capital, replacing Khalid Al-Falih as investment minister amid sweeping cabinet changes. In Al-Saif, the kingdom gets a finance veteran whose experience sits at the intersection of business, politics and sovereign wealth.

Al-Saif worked alongside Finance Minister Mohammed Al-Jadaan as Saudi Arabia started its debt program and began tapping global bond markets in 2016. When it raised a record $21.5 billion a year later, putting the kingdom on the map as one of the most active sovereign emerging-market issuers, Al-Saif was at the helm.

He’s held several positions at Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund and at a Saudi banking giant backed by HSBC Holdings Plc, spending much of the last two decades navigating the worlds of investment and fundraising.

That experience will be critical for the kingdom, which increasingly needs cash as it cuts down on costly projects while working overtime to advance Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s diversification plan.

More recently, he led investment strategy for the PIF. The $1 trillion fund is expected to lay out its plans for the next five years in coming weeks, potentially prioritizing domestic deals and targeting capital inflows to national champions like artificial intelligence firm Humain.

It’s unclear what Al-Saif’s appointment means for the PIF, and his profile was no longer available on a website detailing senior officials as of this week. The wealth fund and the investment ministry didn’t respond to requests for comment.

“He is fundamentally a banker and a financier, someone who speaks the language of international capital and understands the psychology and mechanics of investment flows,” according to Said El-Saadi, chief executive officer of Access KSA, a Saudi-based adviser to foreign businesses that works closely with the government.

“That financial discipline will be critical in aligning strategic priorities with the type of capital Saudi wants to attract,” he said.

Described by some as highly-strategic, data-driven and in tune with the requirements of international investors, Al-Saif has also served on several boards and committees, including at the Capital Market Authority, which is in the throes of reforming Saudi markets — also in a play for more cash from abroad.

He now faces the task of executing on Saudi Arabia’s vision to haul in more than $100 billion in annual FDI by 2030, about triple what it was in 2024. That will likely put him on tour of global financial capitals around the world, much like his predecessor, but with a focus on signing deals that translate into hard cash for the kingdom rather than promoting policies.

FDI is set to become an important part of Saudi Arabia’s economic diversification plan in the years ahead. Officials have been more uniform in that messaging, with Al-Falih among the first to say openly in October that the government would do less so the private sector could do more.

A month later, Al-Saif took the stage at the American Business Forum in Miami to pitch US investors on opportunities he said would advance Saudi Arabia’s role as a conduit of business between East and West.

At the event, he characterized the kingdom as global and friendly, and named six key areas for capital deployment including tourism, advanced manufacturing and logistics. Al-Saif singled out Humain, Savvy Games Group, Alat and Lucid — in which the PIF is the top shareholder — as companies ripe for partnership.

He also named Neom, the Saudi project facing widespread challenges ranging from cost overruns to feasibility concerns, as one of those areas. Al-Saif stopped short of offering any substantial details on the future of the planned desert metropolis.

Speaking just before the government transition, Al-Falih called changes at Neom a part of normal procedure and listed projects including the 2030 World Expo and FIFA 2034 World Cup as priorities, along with AI and data center infrastructure.

Most Gulf equities retreat on US-Iran caution | Reuters

Most Gulf equities retreat on US-Iran caution | Reuters

Most Gulf stock markets ended lower on Monday, as investors assessed the potential market impact of upcoming U.S.-Iran talks aimed at easing tensions.

The two countries are set to hold a second round of talks in Geneva on Tuesday, after reviving negotiations earlier this month aimed at addressing their decades-long dispute over Tehran's nuclear programme and preventing a fresh military confrontation.

Iran is seeking a nuclear deal with the United States that would provide economic gains for both sides, with potential energy and mining investments as well as aircraft purchases on the table, an Iranian diplomat was reported to have said on Sunday.

The U.S. military is making preparations for the possibility of weeks-long operations against Iran if President Donald Trump orders an attack, Reuters reported on Saturday, citing two U.S. officials. Such an escalation could trigger a much more serious conflict than anything previously seen between the two countries.

Saudi Arabia's benchmark index (.TASI), opens new tab fell 0.4%, hit by a 1.3% fall in the country's biggest lender by assets, Saudi National Bank (1180.SE), opens new tab, and a 0.7% drop in oil giant Saudi Aramco (2222.SE), opens new tab.

GCC stock markets came under pressure as regional geopolitical developments kept investors cautious ahead of upcoming U.S.-Iran talks, with headlines still leaving scope for escalation. The resulting risk-off mood spread across the region, weighing in particular on Saudi equities, said Antoine Nadaf, country manager at Givtrade.

"Although the Saudi market retains positive underlying fundamentals and a generally strong corporate earnings season that could support a future rebound, external geopolitical factors and volatility in oil prices continue to weigh on market sentiment."

Crude prices - a catalyst for the Gulf's financial markets - were little changed with investors weighing the market implications of upcoming U.S.-Iran talks aimed at de-escalating tensions against a backdrop of expected OPEC+ supply increases.

Dubai's main share index (.DFMGI), opens new tab lost 0.4%, with blue-chip developer Emaar Properties (EMAR.DU), opens new tab retreating 1.2%.

In Abu Dhabi, the index (.FTFADGI), opens new tab eased 0.1%.

The Qatari index (.QSI), opens new tab was down 0.4%, weighed down by a 2.2% slide in petrochemical maker Industries Qatar (IQCD.QA), opens new tab.

Outside the Gulf, Egypt's blue-chip index (.EGX30), opens new tab fell 1.6%, retreating from a record high and giving back some of the previous session's gains.
In the previous session, the Egyptian exchange surged 3.6% after the country cut interest rates by 100 basis points.