DUBAI- Dubai's Emaar Malls on Monday bought the 49 percent of e-commerce fashion website Namshi it did not own from Global Fashion Group (GFG) for 475.5 million dirhams ($129.5 million).
The owner of Dubai Mall, the Middle East's largest shopping centre, said it bought the stake in an all-cash transaction.
"We have ambitions throughout the region with Namshi so I think they are going to give us a geographic outreach that we do not have with the Dubai Mall today. So that is fundamental," Emaar Malls CEO Patrick Bousquet-Chavanne told Reuters.
Emaar Malls, the retail arm of Emaar Properties, bought a 51 percent stake in Namshi from GFG for $151 million in 2017 shortly after Amazon.com bought Dubai-based e-commerce website Souq.com.
Emaar at the time made an unsuccessful bid for Souq.com.
"Namshi is a remarkable success story with great long-term potential," Bousquet-Chavanne said. "It is an asset we are thrilled to own outright."
Bousquet-Chavanne said there would be "no job cuts whatsover" from the deal.
He also said he did not expect Namshi to collaborate with Noon.com, an e-commerce website that Emaar founder and chairman Mohamed Alabbar set up with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund. ($1 = 3.6728 UAE dirham)
(Reporting by Alexander Cornwell Editing by David Goodman) ((Alexander.Cornwell@thomsonreuters.com;))
