Taylor Wessing’s Dubai office has acted for the founding shareholder of Channel VAS in its sale of a significant minority stake in the company to Waha Capital; a listed Abu Dhabi based Investment Company. The total initial consideration for the acquisition was approximately US$ 55 million.

The Channel VAS group, which is headquartered in Dubai and was founded in 2012, provides air time credit services to mobile telecom operators in over 25 emerging markets, enabling micro payments and providing loans to over 500 million mobile subscribers across the Middle East, Africa, Asia and Europe.

Adnan Chida, partner at Taylor Wessing, commented: “The financial technology sector in the region is continuing to grow at an exciting pace. The value of this transaction, together with the sophisticated nature of the investor, demonstrates that there is considerable potential for high value M&A deals in the fintech space where the target can demonstrate a strong management team, an innovative approach to business operations and a proven financial track record combined with aggressive expansion plans“.