Dubai, UAE – & enterprise, part of e& (formerly known as Etisalat Group), Friday announced the signing of a binding agreement to form a joint venture with Bespin Global, a leading public cloud managed services provider.
The joint venture will be branded ‘Bespin Global MEA, an e& enterprise company’, focusing on offering public cloud managed and professional services to serve the customers in the Middle East, Turkey, Africa and Pakistan (METAP).
The JV will be 65 percent owned by e& enterprise and 35 percent by Bespin Global. Both e& enterprise and Bespin Global will contribute their existing public cloud businesses and related professional and managed services from the region to the JV.
e& enterprise will be making a primary investment of $60 million in Bespin Global and join its Board of Directors. In addition, e& enterprise has the option to invest another $60 million within a period of 18 months from completion of the transaction. Both shareholders will contribute growth capital to the JV.
The joint venture will leverage on the capabilities of both companies. e& enterprise will provide strong local market presence and its broad portfolio of digital transformation solutions. Bespin Global will provide deep expertise in cloud migration, cloud operations, cloud native application development, cloud optimisation and cloud billing. The joint venture will provide a one-stop cloud solution to help enterprises in its digital transformation journey.
As a part of the agreement, e& enterprise will also invest in Bespin Global’s holding company. Bespin Global is one of the fastest growing cloud managed service providers serving over 1,700 customers from its locations in South Korea, China, Japan, Singapore, Vietnam, Indonesia, and the US. Bespin Global has been recognised as ‘Visionary’ in the Gartner MQ for the Public Cloud IT Transformation Services category, and has over 1,000 cloud experts across AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud and other cloud platforms.
The total investment and future commitments announced are worth over $100 million.
“e& enterprise always works closely with customers to maximise their digital potential by designing, delivering and operating impactful, intelligent and secure end-to-end digital solutions,” Salvador Anglada, CEO of e& enterprise, said. “The joint venture with Bespin Global and the investment in the holding company are part of our ongoing efforts to extend our cloud offerings and establish our commitment as a trusted partner to governments and enterprises in the UAE.”
John Hanjoo Lee, CEO and Co-founder of Bespin Global, said: “The joint venture between Bespin Global and e& enterprise will leverage capabilities that will help build the future of cloud business. In addition, we welcome e& as an investor in Bespin Global and appreciate their confidence in our strategy and operations. We look forward to accelerating our growth plan and profitably expanding our operations globally.”
Cloud growth will increase with the rising adoption of technologies such as IoT, edge computing, 5G, and real-time analytics enabled by AI and Machine Learning (ML). With this joint venture, e& enterprise can leverage Bespin Global MEA’s capabilities to serve multiple parts of the cloud value chain.