Its partner in this JV is Bespin Global, recognised as ‘Visionary’ by Gartner
e& enterprise, part of e& (formerly known as Etisalat Group), has signed a binding agreement to form a joint venture with Bespin Global, a public cloud managed services provider.
It will offer the managed services plus professional services to business customers in the Middle East, Turkey, Africa and Pakistan (METAP).
The JV will be 65% owned by e& enterprise and 35% by Bespin Global. Both parties will contribute their existing public cloud businesses and related professional and managed services from the region to the JV.
e& enterprise will make a primary investment of $60 million in Bespin Global and join its Board of Directors. In addition, e& enterprise has the option to invest another $60 million within 18 months from completion of the transaction. Both shareholders will contribute growth capital to the JV.
e& enterprise will provide local market presence and its portfolio of digital transformation solutions. Bespin Global will provide expertise in cloud migration, cloud operations cloud-native application development, cloud optimisation and cloud billing.
The idea is that the JV will provide a one-stop cloud solution to help enterprises in its digital transformation journey.
Committed partnership
As a part of the agreement, e& enterprise will also invest in Bespin Global’s holding company, which serves more than 1,700 customers from its locations in South Korea, China, Japan, Singapore, Vietnam, Indonesia, and the US.
Bespin Global has been recognised as Visionary in the Gartner MQ for the Public Cloud IT Transformation Services category, and has more than 1,000 experts in cloud platforms including AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud and others.
The total investment and future commitments announced today are worth over $100 million.
John HanJoo Lee, CEO and co-founder of Bespin Global said, “By combining forces with e& enterprise in the METAP region, we are bringing much needed cloud managed services to the region where cloud adoption is about to explode…Together, we can accelerate cloud adoption in the region.
“Additionally, we welcome e& as our shareholder. It’s a clear validation of our track record as a trusted cloud managed services provider on the global stage.”
The company expects the growth of cloud services will increase with the rising adoption of IoT, edge computing, 5G and real-time analytics using AI and machine learning.