UAE Investor Buys Stake in NextChem for $65.96 Million

The UAE based investor and entrepreneur Yousef Mohamed Ali Nasser Al Nowais has acquired a 5% stake in Italian industrial group Maire’s sustainable tech solutions subsidiary NextChem for $65.96 million, based on an equity value of NEXTCHEM of $1.32 billion, and on an enterprise value of $1.37 billion.

Al Nowais purchased the stake from Maire Investments (MI), reducing MI’s stake to 12.9% and leaving Maire with an 82.1% holding.

Maire CEO Alessandro Bernini said that the investment will drive NextChem’s expansion in the GCC via Al Nowais’ multiple subsidiaries across various sectors in Abu Dhabi. Al Nowais’ investment will bolster NextChem’s development in a strategic area such as the Middle East, which is already playing a fundamental role in the energy transition, Bernini said.

Yousef Al Nowais said that since the start of the commercial relations with the Group about 20 years ago, as well as his investment in MAIRE more than 10 years ago, he has strongly believed in the validity of this group’s industrial strategies and have had concrete proof of its ability to successfully implement them.

“Today, I believe that NEXTCHEM can benefit from its leading market positioning, thanks to its best-in-class competencies and wide portfolio of proprietary technologies, to ride the current energy scenario, which is increasingly requesting innovative solutions and particularly focused on the decarbonisation space,” he added.

ADNOC Contract for Maire

The UAE investor already holds a 4.7% stake in NextChem’s parent company while Maire bagged a $8.7 billion contract from Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) in October 2023 to install gas processing and sulfur recovery units for the Hail and Ghasha project, in addition to utilities and pipelines.

The offshore venture aims to capture 1.5 million tonnes of carbon per year and produce low-carbon hydrogen.