Teen Traders' Blog

Sulaiman Abdul Kareem Mohammad Al-Fahim,the Abu Dhabi based billionaire told Arabian Business that he plans to complete the deal to buy English Premier League team Portsmouth within two weeks.

Al-Fahim, a board member of Abu Dhabi United Group for Development and Investment told Reuters that negotiations for Portsmouth were still ongoing and that he hoped to conclude the deal by July.

The CEO of the Abu Dhabi based Hydra Properties shall be speaking to fans at the Portsmouth Football Supporters Club in London on July 11 regarding his future plans for the club.

Recently there were concerns over capital availibility concerning over the takeover of Portsmouth. But still he confirmed that the investment shall be taken care of by investors outside of the real-estate fraternity as the real estate market in Abu Dhabi has been widely affected by the global Real Estate woes. He told, ”Let me be very clear in saying that my involvement in ­Portsmouth has nothing to do with Hydra. The money for the Portsmouth Football Club acquisition and the needed future investment has been raised through the network of Falcon Equity from Asian and Middle Eastern investors. None of these investors are from the real estate sector or part of a royal family.”

Abu Dhabi United Group for Development and Investment of which Al-Fahim is a member as told above, had bought Manchester City last year. The middle east is gaining a lot of interest in the now very glamorous Soccer world. Recent enhancements indicate further involvement in world sports from the Middle East . Areas such as the distressed F1 racing and NFL should be on the cards for the Sheikhs.

Hotmail founder Sabeer Bhatia’s Sabse has acquired Jaxtr, the ad supported VoIP startup. The amount paid by Bhatia hasn’t been disclosed but sources say that Bhatia just paid “Peanuts” to buy the troubled startup, Jaxtr. But still Jaxtr has till date received venture funding of about $21.5 million and its investors include the original 3 investors of Skype. Jaxtr was founded by Phillip Mobin and Touraj Parang in October 2005.

According to the deal Jaxtr will continue to work under its own brand name. The company can be a big beneficiary to Bhatia’s Sabse which was started in January 2008 and help Bhatia access and provide Sabse’s services to the huge number Jaxtr users.

Jaxtr, the Menlo Park,CA based start-up is reported to have 10 million users in 220 countries(2008). Jaxtr provides local Phone numbers in numerous countries around the world by contracting with wholesale Direct Inward Dialing (DID) exchanges. In 2008, Jaxtr launched FreeConnect allowing free calling to mobile phones worldwide.

Recently Jaxtr was having little problems and it laid of 13 employees in October. It now has a total of 30 employees. Soon after its high profile CEO  Konstantin Guericke, LinkedIn co-founder, stepped down or was fired.

Sabeer Bhatia got in the news when he sold the free e-mailing service , Hotmail to Microsoft for $400 million. He was awarded the “Entrepreneur of the Year” by Draper Fisher Jurvertson in 1998 and was noted by TIME as one of the “People to Watch” in international business in 2002.

Bharti Airtel, India’s largest Telecom firm on Monday renewed its effort to acquire 49% in the South African telecom company MTN.

As we know, this is the second time the compnay is talking with Bharti and has previously has also talked with Reliance Communication but couldn’t proceed and talks were terminated. The Economist magazine had noted, “If anything, Bharti would be marrying up.”

The companies have now agreed discuss the potential transaction exclusively by July 31 this year.

The New Delhi based Bharti Airtel said in a statement “Bharti Airtel Ltd is pleased to announce that it has renewed its effort for a significant partnership with MTN Group… Bharti would acquire a 49 per cent shareholding in MTN and, in turn, MTN and its shareholders would acquire an approximate 36 per cent economic interest in Bharti, of which 25 per cent would be held by MTN with the remainder held directly by MTN shareholders,”

If the deal goes through, the combined entity will have revenues exceeding $20 Billion and a subscriber base of more than 200 Million.

The South Africa based mutinational, MTN has significant operations in many of the African and Middle Eastern Companies.

MTN often describes itself as “the leader in telecommunications in Africa and the Middle East”

Airtel has nearly 25% of the mobile connections in India.

CMD, Sunil Mittal said “We are delighted at the prospect of developing a partnership with MTN to create an emerging market telecom powerhouse. Both companies would stand to gain significant benefits from sharing each other’s best practices in addition to savings emanating from enhanced scale,” he added “We see real power in the combination and we will work hard to unleash it for all our shareholders. This opportunity also represents a first of its kind in developing an Indian-African initiative that would serve as a shining example of South-South cooperation.”

MTN shall have appropriate representation on the Bharti Board, the company told in statement.

“Singapore Telecommunications, a major existing shareholder of Bharti, will continue to be a strategic partner and significant shareholder after the implementation of the potential transaction,” the Bharti statement said.

The talks between Volkswagen AG and Porsche Automobil Holding SE has been indefinitely postponed but the sports car maker insisted that only the next round had been cancelled.

Peik von Bestenbostel, Volkswagen spokesman, told the associated press that the talks have been put on hold for now. He told,”Before we can take up talks again, it is necessary that Porsche adopts a clearly constructive attitude toward them.”

But Porsche insists that though the next round of talks and the working group meeting on the merger of the two car makers had been cancelled, “The negotiations that were begun last week will continue as planned.”

VW spokeswoman told yesterday, “There is currently no atmosphere for contructive talks.”

A major issue for VW is the huge debt of Porsche. Porsche has a $12 billion net debt after it increased its stake in VW to 51% last year.

Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, the PE giant seems has emerged as ”favourite” to acquire Oriental Brewery, the South Korean brewer the FT reported.

KKR has been named the preferred bidder after weeks  of negotiations and deal making.  Its bid of 1.9Bn$ is significantly ahead of that of  MBK Partners, a Korean PE firm.

It was purchased by InBev in 1998. Today OB produces several of Korea’s most popular beverages including the OB, Cass and Cafri lager brands.

FT reports that KKR’s bid seems to be a knockout blow to Lotte group, the South Korean reatil giant that was once considered “preferred” to buy OB as it wanted to add to its grwing portfolio of beverage products.

FT