Dubai’s Kanoo Group sees opportunities to invest in India, China

Dubai-based conglomerate Kanoo Group is looking at opportunities to invest across the Middle East, and in India and China next year, tapping growing economies with strong returns, according to chairman Mishal Kanoo.

The family-owned company, with interests spanning shipping, real estate, financial services and energy, sees potential in sectors including artificial intelligence and clean energy, Kanoo said in an interview with Bloomberg TV on Friday.

“Each country has a different industry that they are really good at.”

Kanoo Group, which is benefitting from a strong rebound in the UAE’s economy and higher oil prices earlier this year, is also holding internal talks about whether to sell units of the business in an initial public offering.

“There are some benefits of going public because then there is more structure, more governance and more regulatory oversight,” he said.

“On the other hand we also have issues we do as a family that we couldn’t do anymore and we’d have to be much more transparent, which a lot of families might not be ready for at this present time.”

If Kanoo Group were to go ahead with an offering, the company would likely sell shares division by division, he said. But, currently a share sale is unlikely, he said.

The Middle East has emerged as a hotspot for initial public offerings, buoyed by rising oil prices and investor inflows at the start of the year.

More than $20bn has been raised so far from share sales, putting the region on course for its second-best year on record — eclipsed only by 2019, which saw Aramco’s $29.4bn IPO, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

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