Parkin’s $429m IPO oversubscribed 165 times

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Investors put in about $71bn (Dhs259bn) of orders for Dubai public parking firm Parkin’s $428.7m (Dhs1.57bn) initial public offering (IPO) as demand for share sales in the Middle East shows no signs of abating.

Parkin’s IPO was oversubscribed 165 times, the parking company said in a statement, after it increased the number of shares allocated to retail investors on robust investor demand and oversubscription.

The UAE retail offering witnessed robust demand from local investors at Dhs29bn, implying an oversubscription level of 153 times, while the qualified investor tranche attracted 166 more than Dhs230bn.

Dubai Investment Fund floated 749,700,000 shares, equivalent to 24.99 per cent of Parkin’s paid-up capital. The fund set the final price for its IPO at Dhs2.1 ($0.57) per share, which implies a market capitalisation of Dhs6.3bn.

“Today represents a milestone moment for our business as we secured record-breaking investor demand for Parkin shares with overall subscriptions covered 165 times. The IPO will enable us to build on and accelerate our success in providing seamless, sustainable, and innovative mobility solutions in Dubai,” said Mohamed Al Ali, the CEO of Parkin.

The company’s shares will be listed on the Dubai Financial Market on March 21 under the symbol “PARKIN”.

The city’s parking business plans to pay a minimum dividend of either 100 per cent of profit or free cash flow to equity for the full 2024 fiscal year, depending on which is higher.

It operates about 197,000 paid public parking spaces across Dubai as of the end of last year, of which 4,000 or so were at multi-storey car parks.

Parkin joins Dubai’s hot IPO streak

Meanwhile, the IPO is the sixth privatisation by the Dubai government as part of a plan, unveiled at the end of 2021, to list 10 state-owned companies as the emirate seeks to deepen its capital markets.

IPOs in Dubai raised a record Dhs34.5bn since 2021, as privatisations and monetisation initiatives, stock market rallies and soaring energy prices are ensuring that investor demand for share sales in the emirate remains high.

The investor demand for IPOs over the past three years reached more than Dhs1tn, the Dubai Securities and Exchange Higher Committee.

Among the biggest IPOs in the emirate was utility giant Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA), which raised Dhs22.3bn in April 2022 – the biggest listing in Europe, the Middle East or Africa since Saudi Aramco raised almost $30bn in late 2019.

The emirate’s continued listing activity is being driven by implementing various initiatives such as an enhanced digital platform and introducing an IPO accelerator programme.

Read: Dubai’s IPO haul hits Dhs34.5bn in three years