Gulf Arab foreign acquisitions

Original Article

An Abu Dhabi-based company in the process of buying Manchester City from former Thai premier Thaksin Shinawatra signed a memorandum of understanding with the English Premier League club on Monday.

Flush with petrodollars from soaring oil prices, Abu Dhabi has been investing abroad to diversify its economy.

Gulf-based investment firms have poured billions of dollars in recent years into businesses ranging from Western banks and stock exchanges to sports clubs and circus troupes. Following are details of some major Gulf acquisitions:

2007

September - The Qatar Investment Authority said it had bought a 20 percent stake in the London Stock Exchange.

September - Carlyle Group said it was selling a 7.5 percent stake to Abu Dhabi government-owned Mubadala Development Company for $1.35 billion.

September - Abu Dhabi National Energy Co said it would buy Canada's Primewest Energy Trust for C$5 billion ($5.09 billion) in cash, in its biggest acquisition to date.

October - State-owned Dubai Drydocks World offered to buy Singapore's Labroy Marine for around $1.63 billion as interest in rig-building assets heats up amid record oil prices.

November - Abu Dhabi's Mubadala Development Co said it had bought 8.1 percent of U.S.-based Advanced Micro Devices Inc, the second-largest maker of computer processors, for $622 million.

November - Dubai International Capital said it had made a "substantial investment" in Sony Corp.

November - The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority seals a deal to buy a $7.5 billion stake in U.S. bank giant Citigroup.

December - Bahraini Islamic investment bank Gulf Finance House (GFH) signed a deal to develop a $10 billion economic development zone near Mumbai to tap booming sectors such as energy and telecommunications.

2008

February - Al Maabar, a UAE-based venture of Aldar Properties and Sourouh Real Estate, plans to build the Bled El Ward (Town of Flowers) complex of homes, offices, trade centres, hotels, golf courses and a health city over 5,000 hectares. The $10 billion complex north of Tunis will be one of Africa's biggest real estate projects.

April - GFH plans to develop a petroleum-related research and education area on Kazakhstan's Caspian Sea coast at a cost of $10 billion.

April - Qatar-based Gulf Petroleum Ltd secures regulatory approvals to develop a $5-billion oil and petrochemical complex in the northern Malaysian state of Perak.

· It aims to invest between $1.5 billion and $2 billion in the project's first phase to build an oil refinery. June - Qatar Telecommunications will buy Singapore Technologies Telemedia's entire stake in Indonesia's PT Indosat for $1.8 billion, gaining 40.8 percent control of that country's second-biggest mobile phone firm.

July - GFH is to build a corporate centre, an investment banking and advisory centre, an insurance centre and a stock exchange north of Tunis. The project will cost $3 billion.

August - Dubai World, the sovereign wealth fund of the Dubai government, agrees to invest in Russian electricity producer OGK-1. The fund has committed $100 million and is conducting due diligence on the acquisition, which could be worth more than $5 billion.