A business group linked to former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and an Emirati company concluded a deal to buy Finabler PLC (FINABLR PLC), which is based in London and has been hit by a scandal that has bankrupted it.
The Financial Times quoted a person familiar with the matter as saying that Prism Advance Solutions, whose non-executive director is Olmert, and the group of royal strategic partners in Abu Dhabi, including its branch, Emirates Exchange, will buy Finablr. Plc, whose shares are mostly owned by Indian businessman BR Shetty.
The Financial Times says - in a report - that this deal is the biggest since the United Arab Emirates and Israel agreed to normalize relations between them last August.
She explained that Olmert was in daily contact with senior officials in Abu Dhabi or Dubai, with the aim of providing "a degree of confidence that this is a serious business endeavor."
Sheikh Hazza bin Zayed
The newspaper pointed out that the group of royal strategic partners in Abu Dhabi - which is managed by Abu Bakr Al Khoury - is affiliated with Sheikh Hazza bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Vice President of the Executive Council of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi and brother of the de facto leader of the UAE.
Prism - whose chief executive in London is Amir Nagami, an Israeli of Arab descent - is expected to acquire a minority stake, with its Emirati partners controlling the rest.
The UAE-Israel partnership announced that it would provide working capital to support operations, employees, and creditors, and would assist in recovering funds from third parties related to "potential historical errors," and pledged to pay a quarter of any recovered amount to Finablr as an additional allowance, up to a maximum of $ 190 million.
One person familiar with the negotiations portrayed Prism as a "white knight" seeking to solve Finablr employees and lenders' woes. Financial details were not disclosed.
Olmert was imprisoned on bribes
Olmert - who spent time in an Israeli prison convicted of accepting bribes - declined to comment.
Finablr shares, listed in London last March, were suspended after being involved in a scandal surrounding the collapsing healthcare group founded by Indian businessman Shetty.
The US website Bloomberg said that this deal is among the first important commercial transactions between the Emirati and Israeli companies, after the two countries signed the normalization agreement earlier this year, noting that since then, agreements have been signed in sectors ranging from banking services. And mobile phone services, and the site added that the Israeli Finance Ministry expects the annual bilateral trade to reach 6.5 billion dollars.