Abu Dhabi – Mubasher: ADNOC Distribution’s initial public offering (IPO) has attracted strong investor response with the retail tranche securing major local interest having been 22 times oversubscribed and raising AED 3.49 billion alone.
“This enabled the issuer to double the size of the retail tranche from 5% to 10% of the total offering size,” ADNOC Distribution said in a statement.
Meanwhile, the institutional tranche received “substantial engagement” from global institutional investors and was several times oversubscribed.
This IPO is the first time ADNOC has decided to list any of its group companies on a bourse.
First Abu Dhabi Bank (FAB), the UAE’s largest bank and one of the world’s largest banks, was the sole regional bank acting as a Joint Global Coordinator and the sole Lead Receiving Bank for ADNOC Distributions’ IPO.
The IPO is “set to raise over AED 3 billion for ADNOC,” the statement showed, indicating that the offering is an important further step in the company’s “ongoing transformation and value creation strategy” which was announced earlier in 2017.
ADNOC Distribution’s share price has been set at AED 2.50. The company will be listed on the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange (ADX).
“The IPO forms part of ADNOC’s more proactive and smarter approach to managing its assets and capital as it looks to unlock and drive greater value from across the entire ADNOC Group business,” the company highlighted.
Commenting on ADNOC’s successful IPO, FAB deputy group CEO and head of corporate and investment banking André Sayegh noted the positive investor response, which generated “a record demand of Investor Number applications.”
This IPO is the “first bookbuild IPO” for the ADX, the first international offering, Sayegh said, adding that ADNOC Distribution is set to be the first and largest retail sector stock on the ADX.
“This IPO will help further diversify the market and provide investors with a greater choice. The company will also be amongst the largest stocks on ADX, helping to attract more foreign direct investment into the UAE,” the FAB top official concluded.
