Kent's current owners, Bluewater, are a private equity business. Private equity firms typically invest in individual businesses for terms of only 3, 5 or 7 years. Bluewater has been with Kent for eight years, so they are well and truly at the end of their investment cycle. Bluewater has been a good partner to us and helped us get to where we are today, for which we will be forever grateful. A sale was always inevitable. Bluewater has been working with the Kent leadership team for the past six months to find a suitable new owner. Although there was lots of interest from the industry, it became clear that Nesma & Partners emerged as the ideal fit to propel our business forward. Their alignment with our vision and goals makes them the right choice to continue driving our growth.

Nesma & Partners is a leading contracting company and service provider in the energy, building, and infrastructure sectors across the GCC. Headquartered in Saudi Arabia, Nesma & Partners employs and celebrates its diverse workforce of over 34,000 employees from more than 56 different nationalities and provides all of them a platform to pursue their passion in a fast-paced, innovative environment. Inspired by the Kingdom’s Vision 2030, it is focused on its responsibility to deliver sustainable mega-projects that shape a brighter future, both for its people and the communities it serves. Founded in 1981, today it has four shareholders: Nesma Contracting Limited, Alturki Holding, Rawabi Holding, and one of the largest sovereign wealth funds in the world, the Public Investment Fund (PIF).

PIF is the Saudi Arabia sovereign wealth fund established to drive Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 economic transformation program. It is among the largest sovereign wealth funds in the world. PIF has a world-class investment portfolio with a focus on sustainable investments, both domestically and internationally. As well as its many local and MENA investments, PIF is expanding its portfolio of international assets, investing in global sectors and markets. Some of these include well-known brands such as Uber, Boeing, Citigroup, Facebook, Disney, Bank of America and bp. PIF invested in Nesma & Partners in February 2023 with a mandate to grow their capability internationally. This acquisition of Kent is part of that mandate.

There will be no change to our name our brand. From a legal point of view, Nesma & Partners are the acquirer and will be the whole owner of Kent. However, we will continue to operate in all our jurisdictions under our current Kent name and brand.

All of Kent’s legal entities will remain, and existing contracts and clients will not be impacted by this acquisition.

No, there is no reason for there to be an interruption in service. Kent will continue to operate under its existing brand and legal entities so there will be no assimilation or integration required as part of this acquisition.

Kent will continue to offer its existing, four best-in-class services to the energy industry. Through this acquisition, we will be able to develop our existing services and invest in new innovations.

Our business model will not change. Kent’s purpose is to tackle the greatest challenge of our time, and the strategy we have in place to achieve this will be bolstered and accelerated through this acquisition. Simply put, this investment will kick-start Kent’s next cycle of growth and help us to achieve our purpose.

Following Nesma & Partners’ legal acquisition of Kent, we will continue our operations in the same way we are today. There is no formal integration of operations planned between Kent and Nesma & Partners, and both companies will retain their existing operating entities.