LONDON: Following a joint market assessment that commenced in June, Supply@ME announced that it has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Khaled Abdulla Almass and his investment company, iMass LLC to facilitate the expansion of Supply@ME into the Middle East market.

Whilst Europe will remain the focus, with the UK a specific next target, other regions where there is good access to capital and a strong potential demand for Supply@Me’s Inventory Monetization platform are being carefully evaluated.

The MOU is the first step towards a long-term partnership to deliver the roll-out of SYME’s platform in the region, commencing with an inventory monetization pilot programme involving a number of Abu Dhabi-based manufacturing companies (as client companies) and a number of regional investment funds (as inventory funders), which will include sharia compliant investment structures, by the end of Q1 2021.

iMass Investments was founded in 2007 to invest directly in leading companies and major development and commercial projects in the EMEA region including into industrial, food supplies and general trading, real state and services sectors.  Market analysis carried out by iMass within the UAE region estimates that it has an underserved market for Inventory Monetisation of up to 50bn USD for the principal categories within imported goods, and 28bn USD for the main categories of non-oil goods produced in the UAE.

Almass was previously Head of Investment at the Abu Dhabi Investment Company and has been involved in initial public offerings in the UAE with a value in excess of USD 2.1 billion.

SYME believes that its partnership with iMass, under the terms of the MOU, combined with the extensive commercial and financial experience and contacts of Mr Almass will strongly support its business expansion in the region.

Alessandro Zamboni, Chief Executive, Supply@Me Capital PLC, commented, “We’re very excited to have an opportunity to work closely with iMass and Mr Almass in the UAE.  Bringing such financial services professionals and their extensive network of business connections and local knowledge into partnership with us should give SYME the opportunity to launch and scale-up well in this region.  The results of the joint analysis were very positive and we hope that the initial pilot scheme, by the end of Q1 2021, will bring favourable results.  The UAE has a proven track record of investing in fintech initiatives to support the real economy and we are very pleased to be part of that trend.”