The MBC Group has acquired a minority equity stake in Arabian contracting services company Al Arabia which is part of the Engineer Holding Group (EHG), a Saudi media group operating in the Kingdom for over four decades.
The investment aims to support MBC’s growth in advertising sales in the Kingdom and enable Al Arabia to build its ‘out of home’ advertising more broadly across the region. The parties intend to leverage this strategic partnership as a cornerstone for further development and expansion in the advertising sector.
The acquisition follows the recent announcement that MBC will be launching ‘MBC Media Services’, an in-house commercial advertising and sales unit in partnership with EHG. MBC Media Services will be majority controlled by MBC and will begin operations at the start of 2021.
This new approach will allow MBC to work more closely with its clients, which include many of the world’s largest consumer brands, their marketing and advertising companies, and media buyers.
“This important investment and partnership will allow MBC to broaden its advertising sales reach and deepen its penetration of the Saudi market. Our strategy, similar to many of the world’s leading media groups, is to continue adding offers and services to connect with audiences throughout the day across multiple platforms; and offer our advertising clients access to the most engaged regional consumers,” MBC Group Chairman Waleed Al Ibrahim said.
“Our combined experience and assets will allow us to develop a broader and more impactful offering to our clients. Al Arabia’s objective, as the leading out-of-home platform in the region, is to continue introducing innovative media solutions by leveraging available technologies to capture promising opportunities across the region,” Al Arabia CEO Mohammed Alkhereiji remarked.
“Saudi Arabia remains a core growth market for MBC’s advertising sales and our strengthening relationship with Al Arabia will allow us to find new client relationships and to offer clients more integrated solutions. As the Kingdom continues to open as part of Saudi Vision 2030, we are confident more international companies will look to market their brands into this growing and vibrant economy and see MBC as their natural partner,” MBC Group CEO Marc Antoine d’Halluin added.
