DUBAI: The Abu Dhabi Development Holding (ADQ) will partner with LuLu Group International, which runs one of the Middle East’s largest hypermarket chains, by investing $1 billion to back the grocer’s expansion in Egypt.
ADQ will team up with Lulu to develop stores and other operations across the Arab world’s most populous nation. An investment company led by Sheikh Tahnoon Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who also chairs ADQ, acquired an almost 20 percent holding in LuLu earlier this year.
Lulu declined to comment. ADQ wasn’t immediately available to comment. Lulu is an Abu Dhabi-based supermarket group founded by Indian entrepreneur Yusuff Ali, who set up the business during a years-long oil boom in the Gulf region.
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It reached a deal last year to set up four hypermarkets in Egypt. The company has an annual turnover of about $7.4 billion and employs more than 55,000 people.
The expansion into Egypt would follow plans by Saudi Arabia’s $360 billion sovereign wealth fund to explore a potential investment in LuLu. ADQ has invested in LuLu Group businesses except in its Indian and Qatari operations, a person familiar with the matter said earlier this month.
