Oman Investment Authority (OIA), the integrated sovereign wealth fund of the Sultanate of Oman, has announced the start of the initial stage of its exit plan for six of its national investments in diverse sectors. This plan reflects OIA’s role in implementing the national priorities of Oman Vision 2040, aiming to achieve economic diversification, decrease dependence on oil and realise the government’s approach to empower the private sector in leading the national economy and enhancing its role in driving national development.
Nasser bin Sulaiman al Harthy, OIA’s Acting Chairman for Operations said: “Since its inception, OIA has taken it upon itself to empower and enable the private sector and to avoid competing with it to the best of its ability. On that note, OIA conducted workshops and programmes to devise an exit plan within a 5-year timeframe between 2021 and 2025 to exit more than 30 assets.”
He also added that “exiting is a gradual international practice, which is beneficial to multiple parties, and leads to the main objective which is handing over economic ropes to the private sector.”
Through this exit plan, OIA aims to generate revenues for the state’s general budget, utilise the acquired revenues in financing capital expenditure and operational expenses, invest in promising sectors after handing over current investments to the private sector, recycle capital from mature assets to investments that are still in their early stages, create partnerships with private investors who include local and international investors and expand Muscat Stock Exchange (MSX) through initial and secondary public offerings.
The plan focuses on exiting investments in sectors contributing to economic diversification, like manufacturing, mining, tourism, and logistics. Each company presents its exit plan for the next five years. After getting approval from OIA, the company presents a detailed plan which includes exit procedures, main planned stages and any advisory appointments to complete the exit. Companies then execute the plan in collaboration with a team from OIA.
This plan begins execution with six investments in the sectors of energy, manufacturing, tourism and logistics. It will start with preparing three of its assets to be considered for initial public offerings in MSX; a manufacturing project owned by OIA directly and two OQ projects. Additionally, OIA will partially and fully exit two Asyad Group projects and fully exit several OMRAN hotels and resorts.
OIA’s Rawabet project, launched to maintain a link between OIA and its companies, came up with several policies including the ‘Exit’ policy. This policy aims to create a framework adhering to values of transparency, fairness, and utmost integrity. The policy seeks to guide companies in developing and implementing exit policies. The board of directors of each OIA company presents an initial 5-year exit plan to OIA for its approval, then updates the plan annually. (ONA)
