DUBAI: The company planning the first initial share offering on Dubai’s main stock market for five years says it will spend the proceeds on opening more than 100 fashion stores, restaurants and cafes across the Gulf Arab region over the next five years.
Marka, created by prominent businessmen in the United Arab Emirates, will offer for sale 55 percent of its capital or 275 million shares at Dh1 each, in a 12-day sale beginning Sunday.
Initial public offers (IPOs) of shares dried up after Dubai’s financial crisis erupted in 2009. Marka’s IPO is being seen by investors and bankers as a symbol of the emirate’s recovery.
The nature of the company underlines the return of confidence in Dubai — Marka does not have any current operations and is still being incorporated, so investors will be asked to commit their money to a concept and a group of high-profile backers, rather than to any corporate track record.
Dubai-based Marka plans to invest in the fashion retail and food and beverage markets of the UAE and the Gulf, sectors which are growing rapidly because of the region’s consumer boom.
It says it will introduce global franchises and brands to the Gulf, allowing it to build a customer base quickly, though it has not revealed which brands.
Marka obtained regulatory approval to list in Dubai as a “greenfield” company, which meant it did not have to file financial records for past years as existing companies would have to do, Mahdi Mattar, chief executive of IPO lead manager CAPM Investment, told reporters
yesterday. Reuters
