Bayanat IPO: G42-owned company set to raise $171m in Abu Dhabi bourse listing

Silver Lake and International Holding Company to become cornerstone investors in the IPO

Abu Dhabi-based Bayanat will list its shares on the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange on October 31. Alamy

Bayanat, a geospatial data products and services provider owned by Abu Dhabi-based artificial intelligence and cloud computing company G42, aims to raise more than Dh628.5 million ($171m) from its initial public offering.

The company is selling 571.4 million shares, at an offer share price of Dh1.10, it said on Friday. The sale is equivalent to 28.5 per cent of the company's share capital before the offering and 22.22 per cent based on the share capital of the company at listing.

The subscription period for the listing starts on October 21 and ends on October 25, with the company planning to list on the first market of the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange on October 31.

Provided the offering's shares are fully subscribed, G42 will retain 77 per cent ownership of the company following the listing.

Private equity company Silver Lake, which manages more than $92 billion in combined assets and taken up stakes in some of the world's best-known technology companies — including Airbnb, Chinese payments giant Ant Financial, Expedia Group and Twitter — is a cornerstone investor.

International Holding Company, the most valuable business listed on the Abu Dhabi bourse, will also be cornerstone investor in the IPO.

G42 acquired Bayanat in 2020. The company was born out of the commercialisation of the UAE's Military Survey Department, a sector of the UAE Armed Forces.

It provides national level mapping and geospatial products and services for both the public and private sectors in the UAE.

After the IPO, Bayanat will become the first and the only listed geospatial intelligence company in the Mena region.

Bayanat registered an annual 48 per cent increase in revenue, which stood at Dh366.7m in its 2021 fiscal year, according to the company.

Revenue for the first nine months of 2022 more than doubled to about Dh491m. Gross profit in the period to the end of September more than doubled to Dh225.9m while and earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation more than tripled to Dh157.5m.

First Abu Dhabi Bank is the lead receiving bank on the IPO, Dubai Islamic Bank the lead manager and International Securities the lead placement agent.

Bayanat's IPO comes after a flurry of listings in the UAE and wider region, where investor demand has been strong as economies rebound at a quicker pace from the coronavirus-induced slowdown and liquidity has been shored up by high oil prices.

Various government-owned companies have gone public in the UAE and private companies are now following suit.

Earlier this month, Abu Dhabi healthcare provider Burjeel Holdings listed its shares on the ADX after raising more than Dh1.1bn from an 11 per cent stake sale in the company’s IPO.

Other companies to list on the bourse this year include Borouge, the joint venture between Adnoc and Austrian chemicals producer Borealis, and the Abu Dhabi Ports Group, the operator of industrial cities and free zones in the emirate.

Nine companies listed on the ADX last year, including Adnoc Drilling, Fertiglobe, the world’s largest seaborne exporter of urea and ammonia combined, Alpha Dhabi, the property and construction company owned by IHC, and Yahsat, the satellite operator owned by Mubadala Investment Company.

Abu Dhabi’s LuLu Group International is also planning to launch an IPO next year.

Last year, Abu Dhabi also announced a Dh5bn IPO fund to encourage and support private companies to list on the local stock market.

ADX, the Arab world's second-largest stock market, recorded a surge in liquidity and foreign investment in 2021 on the back of new listings, anchoring it as one of the world’s best-performing equity gauges in 2021.

The bourse's market value has soared throughout the past year, with its capitalisation reaching about Dh2.3 trillion as of the close of trading on Friday.

Dubai, which plans to list 10 state-owned companies to increase the size of its financial market to about Dh3tn, has also registered a number of IPOs.

In September, the emirate's toll operator Salik raised Dh3.73bn from the sale of a 24.9 per cent stake.

The Dubai Water and Electricity Authority raised Dh22.41bn from its IPO earlier in the year, making it the largest public float in the Middle East and Europe since Saudi Aramco went public in 2019.

Tecom, the operator of business districts in Dubai, also made its debut on the DFM in early July, having raised Dh1.7bn from its IPO a month earlier.

The number of listings in the Mena market increased sixfold during the first six months of this year, with 24 IPOs raising $13.5bn, according to an EY report on the region's IPOs. In the second quarter of 2022, nine IPOs raised about $9bn.

The UAE was the biggest IPO market in terms of the aggregate value of deals while Saudi Arabia led in terms of volume, with five IPO deals in the first six months of the year, according to EY's data.