UAE-Israel consortium to buy scandal-hit Finablr for $1

By Rahul Vaimal, Associate Editor
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Abu Dhabi headquartered payment solution Finablr has agreed with Global Fintech Investments Holding (GIFH), an affiliate of Prism Group of Israel, to sell its business for a nominal $1, months after it first reported sale talks.

In line with the purchase, Israel-based Prism Group has formed a consortium with Abu Dhabi’s Royal Strategic Partners (RSP) which is headed by Abubaker Al Khoori, is affiliated with Sheikh Hazza bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Vice Chairman of the Abu Dhabi Executive Council.

As part of the agreement, GFIH will provide Finablr with working capital to operate and support its creditors and employees, as per a statement on the London Stock Exchange, where the company’s shares used to trade. Finablr intends to utilize the nominal consideration and any further consideration received to return value to its creditors, followed by its shareholders.

“In addition, GFIH will undertake to support and facilitate the company’s continued efforts to recover funds from third parties in respect of possible historic wrongdoing within the group,” the statement said.

The global payment and money exchange solution Finablr owns a number of companies including UAE Exchange, Xpress Money, Unimoni, Remit2India and Bayan Pay. Earlier, it also owned the Travelex foreign exchange business, but that was taken over by its lenders in a separate restructuring exercise in July.

“Prism and RSP are building a highly experienced executive management team to help lead the proposed transformation of Finablr. Through this transformation, Prism intends to create a world-leading, financial services platform for the emerging and frontier markets,” the statement said.

Last year May, Finablr launched its shares on the London Stock Exchange in a deal that valued the business at $1.5billion, but the company had to face several challenges this year that began with a cyberattack on Travelex along with trouble at its holding firm BRS Investment Holdings.

Shares of Finablr were suspended in March amid rising scandals and allegations of forgery, fraud and whopping debts amounting to $6.6 billion with NMC Health. In May, Finablr reported that its debt was $1 billion higher than the $334.1 million previously reported in its accounts.

Finablr

The global payments and foreign exchange solutions, Finablr was founded in 2018. The company has a direct presence in 45 countries through licensed operations complemented by a network reach spanning 170 countries.

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