According to Reuters, the company is the single investor in the funding round and will spend a portion of the funds to acquire some of the Grab stock held by Uber Technologies. However, Grab declined to comment, while Alibaba and Uber were not immediately available to respond regarding this topic.
Moreover, Uber, which surrendered its Southeast Asian operations to Grab in March 2018, took a 27.5% stake in Grab’s business. In April 2020, the company stated that it expects an impairment charge of up to USD 2.2 billion, adding that the charge would be against the carrying value of some of the company’s minority equity investments, due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the estimated value of those entities.
Furthermore, Grab shows potential for investments, having an estimated valuation of USD 14 billion. Besides, it counts SoftBank Group Corp as one of its backers and expanded into financial services, food delivery, and mobile payments over the last few years, even before the COVID-19 pandemic affected its mainstay ride-hailing business, Reuters reported.
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