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Uber sells Southeast Asia business to competitor Grab

March 26, 2018

Uber Technologies Inc. sold its Southeast Asia business to human cloud and ride-sharing firm Grab.

The Singapore-based firm takes over Uber’s operations and assets — including food delivery service UberEats — in Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. In exchange, Uber will hold a 27.5% stake in the combined company and Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi will join Grab’s board.

About 500 Uber employees across the region will transition to Grab, and it will move its customers Grab’s apps over the coming weeks.

This deal is the largest ever of its kind in Southeast Asia, according to Grab. Uber’s ridesharing and food delivery business in the region will integrate into Grab’s existing multi-modal transportation and fintech platform.

“We will rapidly and efficiently expand GrabFood into all major SEA countries in the next quarter,” said Grab Co-founder Tan Hooi Ling. “We’re going to create more value for our growing ecosystem of consumers, drivers, agents — and now merchants and delivery partners. GrabFood will also be another great use case to drive the continued adoption of GrabPay mobile wallet and support our growing financial services platform.”

“Our journey in Southeast Asia started in Singapore almost five years ago,” Khosrowshahi wrote in an email to Uber staff. “I’m conscious that much of the hard work happened before I arrived, and I want to recognize the operations you have built across these eight countries. After investing $700 million in the region, we will hold a stake worth several billion dollars, and strategic ownership in what we believe will be the winner in an important global region.”