Overview —
At a Glance
BinDawood Holding established the subsidiary Future Technology Retail (FTR) in January 2022 to capitalize on investment opportunities for the Company. FTR is headquartered in Jeddah and focuses on capitalizing on investment opportunities in the technology and retail solutions sector either through establishing new companies and/or acquiring existing entities to advance BinDawood Holding in achieving its long-term goals.
To date FTR has announced two acquisitions both of which closed in July 2022. The first was a 62% share in International Application Trading Company (IATC), the company which developed and operates the Danube and BinDawood e-commerce platforms and online mobile applications.
The second was an 80.5% stake in Ykone, a profitable influencer marketing agency with a proprietary technology offering, focused on travel, beauty, fashion and luxury brands, with a presence in Europe, Asia, the US and Middle East. Ykone provides end to end services on strategy, talent management, content production and monitoring to more than 200 leading brands across the globe including the MENA region. The transaction was completed through FTR’s French subsidiary company.
IATC
The IATC acquisition closed in July 2022. IATC developed and operates the Danube Online e-commerce platform and online mobile applications of the Danube and BinDawood brands in addition to the provision and management of services relating to the online platform and mobile applications.
The acquisition is strongly aligned with BinDawood Holding’s objectives to enhance its position in e-commerce and to strengthen its omnichannel presence. As part of the transaction agreement, the founder and the Management Team of IATC will remain with the Company and BinDawood Holding will invest a further amount of up to SAR 160 million in IATC over a two-year period to support the development of the platforms and the roll-out of a network of state-of-the-art dark stores and fulfillment centers to optimize operations, fully integrate the customer experience and provide shorter lead delivery times.
YKONE
FTR announced the acquisition of an 80.5% stake in Ykone in July 2022. The transaction was completed through FTR’s French subsidiary company. Ykone is a profitable international influencer marketing agency with a proprietary technology offering, focused on travel, beauty, fashion and luxury brands, with a presence in Europe, Asia, the US and the Middle East. It provides end to end services on strategy, talent management, content production and monitoring to more than 200 leading brands across the globe including the MENA region. The strategic investment will position BinDawood Holding to maximize on the growth of retail ecommerce through digital marketing, and to further deepen its e-commerce value chain.
In turn, Ykone will benefit from the financial and commercial support of BinDawood Holding to further improve its technological platform, to diversify into other industry segments and verticals and to gain deeper access to the Middle East markets.
