Saudi Aramco Buys 7.4% Stake in Norwegian Software Firm Cognite

The logo of Saudi Aramco is pictured outside Khurais, Saudi Arabia October 12, 2019. (Reuters)
The logo of Saudi Aramco is pictured outside Khurais, Saudi Arabia October 12, 2019. (Reuters)
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Saudi Aramco Buys 7.4% Stake in Norwegian Software Firm Cognite

The logo of Saudi Aramco is pictured outside Khurais, Saudi Arabia October 12, 2019. (Reuters)
The logo of Saudi Aramco is pictured outside Khurais, Saudi Arabia October 12, 2019. (Reuters)

Saudi Aramco has bought a 7.4% stake in Norwegian industrial software group Cognite from oil firm Aker BP, Cognite said on Wednesday.

The price for the stake was "around 1 billion Norwegian crowns," or about $113 million, an Aker BP spokesperson told Reuters, valuing Cognite at just over $1.5 billion.

Cognite and Saudi Aramco are in a partnership to provide digitization services in Saudi Arabia and the wider Middle East region.

"Cognite has proven that their technology delivers complex real time insights seamlessly and is optimizing how energy is being supplied to the world," Saudi Aramco Senior Vice President Ahmad A. Al-Sa'adi said in a statement.

Both Cognite and Aker BP are part of Norwegian billionaire Kjell Inge Roekke's group of companies, whose investment firm Aker ASA has a 50.5% stake in Cognite.

US venture capital firm Accel holds 12.4% while Cognite's Chief Executive John Markus Lervik owns 7.2%, an Aker spokesman said in May last year.



Morocco Receives 17.4 Million Tourists in 2024, Up 20% on 2023

FILE PHOTO: People walk outside the Cinema Museum of Ouarzazate, Morocco, October 23, 2024. REUTERS/Stelios Misinas/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: People walk outside the Cinema Museum of Ouarzazate, Morocco, October 23, 2024. REUTERS/Stelios Misinas/File Photo
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Morocco Receives 17.4 Million Tourists in 2024, Up 20% on 2023

FILE PHOTO: People walk outside the Cinema Museum of Ouarzazate, Morocco, October 23, 2024. REUTERS/Stelios Misinas/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: People walk outside the Cinema Museum of Ouarzazate, Morocco, October 23, 2024. REUTERS/Stelios Misinas/File Photo

Morocco received a record 17.4 million tourists in 2024, up 20% compared with previous year, with Moroccans living abroad accounting for nearly half the total, the tourism ministry said on Thursday.
Tourism accounts for about 7% of the North African country's gross domestic product and is a key source of jobs and foreign currency, Reuters reported.
The number of arrivals this year was two years ahead of target, the ministry said in a statement. It expects Morocco to receive 26 million tourists by 2030, when the country co-hosts the World Cup, together with Spain and Portugal.
Morocco has opened additional air routes to key tourist markets, while promoting new destinations within the country and encouraging the renovation of hotels.
From January to November, tourism revenue rose 7.2% to a record 104 billion dirhams, according to Morocco's foreign exchange regulator.