NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Emirates Telecommunications Group company — e& — on Monday announced the signing of a binding agreement with Uber Technologies, and its subsidiary Careem to acquire a majority stake in the latter’s Super App spinout.

Emirates Telecom — previously known as Etisalat and now rebranded as e& — is seeking to reinvent itself as a global technology investor for which it has the “capacity and the wallet” to do so, the group’s chief executive officer recently told Bloomberg TV. Last year, it became Vodafone’s biggest investor.

Photo courtesy of Jean Gerber.