Jabbar Group becomes sole owner of Cobone.com

Jabbar Group becomes sole owner of Cobone.com

Jabbar Group plants its feet firmly in ecommerce with the recent acquisition of full ownership of Cobone.com. Precious de Leon reports.

July 25, 2011 9:54 by Precious de Leon

Jabbar Internet Group has taken complete ownership of Cobone.com, a Middle East daily deal website.

The deal saw an undisclosed amount of second-round of funding from Jabbar, which has allowed the company to buy out minority shareholder Group Buying Global (GBG). Jabbar is backed by management company Tiger Global while GBG is run by European Angel Investor Klaus Hommels.

Launched on August 2010, Cobone.com currently has more than 600,000 members across five countries and reportedly over $13 million dollars in savings. The company has staff in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

“We are very excited about the prospects and future of Cobone.com, and we are investing heavily in it,” said Samih Toukan, CEO of The Jabbar Group and the founder of Maktoob, which was bought by Yahoo! last year in a multimillion-dollar deal.

“In the face of harsh competition and a demanding market, Cobone.com has proven itself to be the definitive daily deals web site in the Middle East, and we aim to grow this business into one of the largest online businesses in the region.”

According to the release announcing the acquisition, such investments by Jabbar demonstrate the growing interest of well-recognised, international firms in companies that have a high growth potential in the Middle East and North Africa.

Jabbar Group was created to house some business, advertising and ecommerce sites that were under the Maktoob umbrella when the company was split during the Yahoo! acquisition. Sites under Jabbar include souq.com, sukar.com, joob, cashu and advertising network ikoo.