UAE’s Al Habtoor Group moves closer to IPO, weighs Europe acquisitions

The Bentley Showroom at Dubai Marina. Satish Kumar / The National

Al Habtoor Group, the sole dealer of Bentley and Bugatti in the UAE, is closer to the initial public offering it has been considering since 2000, its chief executive officer said in an interview.

“We have all the documents ready, all that we need to do is to update all the information” to include revenue from the recently completed Al Habtoor City project, Mohammed Al Habtoor told Bloomberg TV. His father, billionaire Khalaf Al Habtoor, said in December 2012 the Dubai-based investment and contracting company was postponing a share sale because it didn’t see sufficient opportunities to invest the proceeds.

Al Habtoor Group, which is spending $500 million to build a resort near Dubai with a St Regis Hotel at the centre of three polo fields, bought hotels in the UK, Austria and Hungary. The company is considering further acquisitions in large European cities, as well as developing real estate in Eastern Europe, Al Habtoor said.

Demand for hotels in Dubai is stable, he said. “For now it’s not bad. I don’t want to be too optimistic.”

The group’s most profitable division, Al Habtoor Motors, acquired almost two-thirds of Mitsubishi Fuso’s distributor in Saudi Arabia, the auto-maker’s truck brand, earlier this year, Al Habtoor said.

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