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Bloomberg
Amazon.com Inc. has won the battle to acquire Dubai-based online retailer Souq.com, after walking away from a deal earlier this year. The US e-commerce giant trumped an offer from Emaar Malls PJSC, operator of the world’s biggest shopping center, which bid $800 million for Souq.com. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed in a joint statement from Amazon and Souq.com on Tuesday, and the companies declined to comment on them.
“Amazon and Souq.com share the same DNA — we’re both driven by customers, invention and long-term thinking,†said Russ Grandinetti, senior vice president at Amazon, in a statement. The deal marks Amazon’s first major push into a region where e-commerce is less developed than in US, Europe and parts of Asia. Souq.com, founded in 2005, sells online to customers in UAE, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, attracting around 23 million online visits per month, according to its website.
Souq.com was valued at $1 billion in its last funding round, people with knowledge of the matter said at the time. The retailer secured $275 million in February 2016 from investors including Standard Chartered Private Equity, International Finance Corp. and Baillie Gifford. The fundraising made the company the most valuable internet company in the Middle East, according to Standard Chartered. Souq.com’s investors also include hedge-fund firm Tiger Global Management LLC and South African media company Naspers Ltd.
Amazon restarted negotiations to buy the company for as much as $650 million, people familiar with the situation said on March 9, after walking away from a deal earlier in the year. Souq.com appointed Goldman Sachs Group Inc. to find buyers for a stake sale, people familiar with the matter said in September. The deal, which is expected to close in 2017, is one of Amazon’s largest acquisitions in recent years.
In 2014 it bought game streaming site Twitch for $970 million. The U.S. retail giant began weighing a bid for Souq.com late last year, a move first reported by Bloomberg.