Shares of Emaar Misr, the Egyptian unit of the UAE’s biggest property developer, will probably start trading in Cairo from Sunday.
The company, which has sold shares to the public in the largest IPO in Egypt since 2007, said yesterday it expected to win approval from the Egyptian stock exchange tomorrow.
“Accordingly trading of its ordinary shares on the Egyptian stock exchange is now expected to occur on or around Sunday 5 July 2015,” Emaar Misr said in a statement yesterday.
The initial public offering for its Egyptian unit attracted more than 11 times the number of shares available for institutional buyers amid booming appetite for investing in the Arab world’s most populous nation.
The tranche offered to Egyptian investors was oversubscribed 36 times.
In all, the company sold 600 million shares, or a 13 per cent stake, at 3.8 Egyptian pounds per share, valuing the whole company at 17.6 billion pounds (Dh8.42bn).
Emaar Misr has 15.4 million square metres of land spread out across its four luxury residential projects in Egypt, which include a resort on the north coast. Proceeds from the stake that it is selling will go towards buying land.
Investors are lining up to tap economic growth as Egypt starts to show green shoots after four years of political turbulence in which two presidents were deposed in as many years.
While the Egyptian stock exchange has rallied in the past two years as optimism grows, the economy is not without problems – a shortage of hard currency chief among them. Still, demand for real estate in Egypt is high amid a shortage of property.
Investor excitement over Egypt reached a peak in March, when Arabian Gulf countries and international corporations pledged about US$80bn in aid and investment at an economic conference in Sharm El Sheikh to help the country get back on its feet.
mkassem@thenational.ae
Follow The National's Business section on Twitter
