Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala is mulling a multi-billion dollar investment in a range of industries in Brazil, according to a senior government official.
Waleed Al Muhairi, the chairman of the UAE investment vehicle, met with the Brazilian minister of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade, Fernando Pimentel earlier this week to discuss opportunities, the Arab Brazil News Agency (ABNA) reported.
It quoted a ministry spokesman as saying Al Muhairi told Brazilian officials that the company had $13 billion available to invest in the fields of oil and gas, aluminium, semiconductors, infrastructure and aerospace.
The spokesman did not specific over how many years any investment by Mubadala would be.
According to the ministry, the meeting was called by Mubadala, which is keen to do business in Brazil.
ABNA reported that Al Muhairi would return to Brazil next month to also seek investment opportunities in the agribusiness sector.
Brazil is one of the fastest growing major economies in the world with an average annual GDP growth rate of over five percent.
Mubadala, established in 2002 by the Abu Dhabi government to handle the diversification of the emirate’s investments, owns stakes in high profile companies such as the US-based AMD and GE.
Last month it posted a loss of AED315m ($85.76m) for 2010 due to mark to market writedowns.
Mubadala, which holds stakes in Advanced Micro Devices Inc and Ferrari, as well as General Electric and private equity firm Carlyle, said total assets increased by 14 percent to AED101.5bn in 2010.
Revenue rose 22 percent year-on-year to AED16bn.
Earlier this month, Mubadala said it plans to boost spending to about $16.3bn this year.
The company will deploy a “substantial” portion of capital and investment expenditure over 2011 to 2015 on real-estate, oil and gas, and public-private partnership projects.
Abu Dhabi, home to more than seven percent of the world’s proven crude reserves, is seeking to diversify from oil by investing in industries such as real estate and aerospace.
Follow us on
