Saudis to Invest $200 million in IT Sector of Pakistan
The National Technology Group from Saudi Arabia recently held a seminar which was attended by Minister of IT, MD PSEB, senior management of NTG, Ministry of IT, PSEB, and executives from more than 50 companies. The subject was an investment of $200 million in the Pakistani software and telecom sector.
NTG is one of the largest Information and Communication Technology conglomerates in Saudi Arabia. It has an annual revenue over 2 billion riyals and has more than 20 ICT subsidiaries across the world including Saudi Arabia, Gulf, Egypt, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Turkey. Now, they are keen to invest in Pakistan.
State Minister for Information Technology and Telecom Anusha Rahman said:
Saudi investors are very keen to acquire IT companies of Pakistan and will come up with a list of 15-20 companies for acquisition.
She further added:
Telecom policy is being formulated in consultation with all stakeholders and expected to raise telecom revenue to Rs 800 billion by 2020 and Rs 1,200 billion by 2025.
Praising the initiative, MD PSEB, Asim Shahryar Husain, said that the opportunity offered by NTG will be lucrative for mid sized IT companies in Pakistan as they would have access to capital and an opportunity to go to new markets. He added that Pakistan’s IT remittances are expected to exceed half a billion dollars during 2014-15 while exports are expected to grow by 35% compared to last year to reach $2 billion.
NTG Pakistan would merge and acquire software houses in Pakistan followed by a public IPO
Chairman NTG, Mr. Mohammad AlBalla, said that NTG wants to form a holding company called NTG Pakistan, which would be a strategic partner of the PSEB. The company would be formed through mergers and acquisitions of software houses with NTG Pakistan (which was formerly known as AGCN Pakistan).
KPMG will be the auditor for all due diligence of the selected companies. Overall, the process is expected to take up to one year after which negotiations and acquisitions will go through. Once NTG Pakistan is fully established, a public IPO will take place to raise capital.
Anusha Rahman concluded by saying:
Pakistan is an attractive destination for IT and telecom investment because of the market size and availability of skilled IT resources and that the ministry plans on doing the second round of spectrum auction later this year.
NTG will be holding seminars in order to offer collaboration to go global. They will take place in Islamabad on 27th April at Serena, Lahore 28th April at Pearl Continental and 30th April in Karachi Movenpick.