Aabar gets nod to convert to private joint stock firm

Abu Dhabi, August 16, 2010

Abu Dhabi's Aabar Investments, the largest shareholder in German automaker Daimler, said shareholders have approved its conversion to a private joint stock company and subsequent delisting.

Share capital for the new company was set at 4.04 billion dirhams ($1.10 billion), with a nominal value of one dirham per share, Aabar said in a statement on the Abu Dhabi bourse website on Monday.

The sovereign wealth fund posted a second-quarter loss of 1.38 billion dirhams ($375.6 million) due to a surge in derivatives liabilities, according to Reuters calculations.

The state-owned firm said on Sunday it made a net profit of 202 million dirhams for the first half of the year.

The delisting, set to take effect on September 1 according to The National newspaper, would make Aabar the local firm to delist from the Abu Dhabi bourse.

Aabar's portfolio includes stakes in Italian banking giant UniCredit and Virgin Group's space travel unit Galactic. International Petroleum Investment Corporation, or IPIC, wholly owned by the government of Abu Dhabi, is the majority shareholder in Aabar. -Reuters

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