São Paulo – The executive secretary at the Ministry of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade, Alessandro Teixeira, should travel to the United Arab Emirates next week to proceed with the talks started with Mubadala, the investment company of Abu Dhabi, the capital of the Arab country. The organisation’s president, Waleed Al Muhairi, met with the minister Fernando Pimentel, in Brasília, last week.
On Monday (2), Pimentel said, in São Paulo, that Muhairi’s visit was "for prospection” and said that he is "greatly interested in investing in the productive sector” in Brazil. According to the Ministry, the executive said that Mubadala has US$ 13 billion in the till to invest in Brazil.
Pimentel added that the company from Abu Dhabi is interested in the mining, aluminium, energy, logistics and other sectors. “They are not just shareholders [in the enterprises in which they have shares], but also try to participate in management,” said the minister, in a press conference with Teixeira.
The executive secretary did not disclose the theme of the meeting he is scheduled to have with Mubadala in the Emirates. Last week, the MDIC informed that the company is also interested in the areas of aerospace and semiconductors and that Muhairi should return to Brazil to prospect agribusiness opportunities. The interest in the agricultural area, however, was not confirmed by Pimentel and Teixeira.
Mubadala was established by the government of Abu Dhabi in 2002 to take care of diversification of the investment of the emirate. The fund has shares in companies like the North American AMD, a maker of semiconductors, and GE, as well as business in the energy, industry, health, infrastructure, real estate, finance, aerospace, communications and service sectors.
According to figures disclosed on the company site, revenues totalled 16 billion dirham (US$ 4.4 billion) in 2010, growth of 22% over 2009. The net profit was 1.1 billion dirham (US$ 300 million).
Mubadala, according to the site, ended last year with 105.1 billion dirham (US$ 28.6 billion) in assets and 61.1 billion dirham (US$ 17 billion) in share participation.
*Translated by Mark Ament
