Abu Dhabi's IHC to list three of its units on ADX secondary market

Palms Sports, Zee Stores and Easy Lease will make their market debuts from December 21

ADX's current market capitalisation sits at Dh808bn, having increased by almost 40% in 2020. Reuters

International Holding Company (IHC) will list three subsidiaries on Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange's secondary market to boost their growth.

Sports education programme provider Palms Sports, food and non-food retailer Zee Stores and motorcycle rental company Easy Lease will be listed later this month, IHC said in a statement to the ADX, where its shares trade.

“Palms Sports, Zee Stores and Easy Lease are well-established firms with a consistent track record of business expansion in recent years,” Syed Basar Shueb, chief executive and managing director of IHC, said. “By listing on the ADX second market, these ambitious companies are offering investors an exceptional opportunity to participate directly in the early to mid-stage growth phase of their corporate development.”

Set up in 2010, Palms Sports had assets of Dh344.5 million as of the end of September 2020 and employs more than 700 people. The company will start trading on December 21, with each share having a nominal value of Dh1. The share capital will be Dh150m.

Zee Stores will make its market debut on December 23 under the trading symbol ZS. Founded in 2002, the company has a share capital of Dh100m and assets of Dh189m as at the end of September 2020.

Easy Lease, which rents fleets of motorcycles to the delivery and courier sectors, will be listed after December 27 and has a nominal share capital of Dh30m. Each share will also have a nominal value of Dh1. The company has assets of Dh74.1m as at the end of September 2020.

Listed on the ADX since 2005, Abu Dhabi-based IHC, which is majority owned by Abu Dhabi's PAL Group of Companies, has expanded its operations to include real estate, healthcare, food and agriculture.

In the second half of this year, IHC and its subsidiaries announced several new investments. These include Falcon CI IV LP, a fund that owns a stake in Elon Musk’s aerospace company, SpaceX, Oxford Nanopore, a high-tech UK small and medium enterprise with an innovative Covid-19 testing product, and a partnership with Sudan's DAL Group to develop farmland in the North African country.