MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Abu Dhabi one of many buyers of Santander Brazil IPO

The Aabar fund also holds a 9.1% stake in Germany’s Daimler-Benz

Publicly listed Abu Dhabi fund Aabar Investments PJSC which is the biggest shareholder in Daimler AG, invested 328 million US dollars in Banco Santander (Brasil) SA by buying shares in its initial public offering.

Aabar bought American depositary shares issued by the Banco Santander (Brasil), a unit of Spain’s biggest bank, Aabar said in a statement to the Abu Dhabi bourse MOnday.

“We hope to continue to strengthen and develop the existing relationship we have with Banco Santander and look forward to working with them in the future,” Aabar Chairman Khadem Al Qubaisi said in the statement.

Aabar started as a small energy company but was transformed when its core assets were taken over by International Petroleum Investment Company which is wholly owned by the Abu Dhabi government.

Aabar in March paid 2.7 billion USD for a 9.1% stake in Stuttgart, Germany-based Daimler, the world’s second-biggest luxury carmaker. In July, it bought a 32% stake in Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic Ltd. commercial space venture for 280 million USD.

Santander plans to open 600 branches in Brazil by 2013 and carve out new business in lending to companies and homebuyers. The company, with more than 2,000 branches in the country, is Brazil’s fourth-biggest non-state bank, with a market share of about 10 percent by assets.

Abu Dhabi is the largest and wealthiest of the seven emirates that make up the UAE and has spent billions trying to diversify its oil dependent economy and become an internationally recognized financial hub.