Emerging markets classifieds operator Frontier Digital Ventures has announced it would increase its equity shareholding in Morocco’s auto marketplace, ‘moteur.ma’, to 49 percent in October, as it eyes a total majority stake in the company in the near future.
The increase in shareholding was foreshadowed in the recent US$22.9 million raise from the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) listing .FDV will be exercising its call option in moteur.ma to further accelerate moteur.ma’s leadership position in Morocco.
In a statement, FDV’s Chief Executive Officer, Shaun Di Gregorio said: “Our goal is to be the leading operator of online classifieds businesses in select frontier markets across the globe. We are currently partnered with 15 Operating Companies, which are growing at a rapid rate.”
Gregorio says this is beneficial to both FDV and moteur.ma. FDV will increase its stake in the business while ‘moteur.ma’ gets the fuel to further accelerate its market leadership by signing up more advertisers, increasing monthly website customer traffic and the total leads being generated from consumers to advertisers.
Just a week ago, FDV confirmed it had invested $1.2 million into Nigeria’s ToLet and taken up a majority stake in Ghana real estate platform Meqasa.
Frontier’s strategy is to partner with local entrepreneurs running market leading online classifieds businesses in frontier markets, and apply its management and operating expertise, and financial resources to accelerate the growth and leadership position of each Operating Company. As each business grows, Frontier will look to increase its equity stake as each business matures. Its portfolio currently consists of 15 market leading companies, operating businesses across 19 markets.