UAE’s Emirates Global Aluminium says IPO on track for second half

The planned initial public offering (IPO) of Emirates Global Aluminium (EGA) is on track for the second half of 2018, the company’s chief executive said on Tuesday.

EGA is likely to be the second major listing by a state company in the United Arab Emirates since Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) listed shares in its retail petrol station unit in 2017.

Read: Abu Dhabi’s ADNOC Distribution shares open sharply up

“We are on track for the IPO in the second half of 2018,” EGA’s CEO Abdulla Jassem Kalban told reporters in Abu Dhabi.

The company is likely to list between 10 to 15 per cent of its shares, Reuters previously reported, citing a source. The company has not commented on the size of the flotation.

The potential listing comes as Abu Dhabi restructures its industrial sector, hoping to attract foreign investors via privatisation after lower energy prices in the past few years depleted its coffers.

EGA was created in 2013 when state funds Mubadala and Investment Corp of Dubai (ICD) merged their aluminium companies. Its enterprise value was put at $15bn at the time.

EGA exports 90 per cent of its output, including half a million tonnes to the United States, Kalban said, where US President Donald Trump has pressed ahead with tariffs on steel and aluminium imports. A UAE official told Reuters the UAE was seeking an exemption to the tariffs which the US has handed to some allies.

Read: UAE’s Emirates Global Aluminium “well prepared” following Trump threat

Government talks between the UAE and the United States are “progressing very well,” Kalban said.

The United States “is a good market, we will continue supplying customers,” he added.

EGA’s Al Taweelah refinery is 82 per cent complete and is on track to be operational in first half of 2019, Kalban said, adding that it plans to expand a 2.6 million tonnes per annum smelter to 4 million tonnes. He did not give a timeline.