Abu Dhabi Investment Co (Adic), the investment and financial advisory arm of the Abu Dhabi Government, has bought 25 per cent of Emirates Floatglass, a Dubai Investments subsidiary.
Khalid Kalban, chief executive officer and managing director of Dubai Investments, which has about 30 subsidiaries, told Gulf News that the holding company intended to sell more shares in Emirates Floatglass, which has a paid-up capital of $100 million (Dh367 million).
"Our aim is to bring down our holding in the subsidiary to as low as 26 per cent," Kalban said.
He said Dubai Investments had plans to establish a venture similar to Dubai Investment Park in Abu Dhabi, in which key investors from Abu Dhabi are keen to invest.
Dubai Investment Park is being developed in phases and it will include industrial, business, residential and recreational developments on 3,200 hectares.
Emirates Floatglass is coming up in Abu Dhabi at a cost of about $200 million (Dh734 million).
Kalban said the engineering, procurement and construction contract of the project was awarded to an Italian company and Emirates Floatglass would be operational by the last quarter of this year.
The company signed a technology transfer deal with PPG of the United States.
It has identified land for the project in Abu Dhabi, and once the project is completed, it will be able to produce 20 million square metres of floatglass a year.
The floatglass will be used as raw material by Emirates Glass and Lumiglass, other group companies.
"The size of the floatglass market is approximately 20 million square metres annually and this market makes only about 10-11 million square metres of floatglass by two units one in Saudi Arabia and the other in Israel," Kalban said.
Kalban said Dubai Investments would create a holding company for glass units. "This will grow to become one of the top glass conglomerates in the world," he said.
