Dubai Electricity & Water Authority (DEWA) increased the size of its initial public offering (IPO) to 17 percent, up from the previously announced 6.5 percent of shares. The deal could raise as much as 21 billion dirhams.
DEWA’s IPO shares could become the largest in the region since Saudi Aramco, which raised a record amount of $29.4 billion in 2019.
The company said in a statement that it increased the size of the tranche reserved for institutional investors from 5.9 percent to up to 16.4 percent, while the tranches for retail investors and employees will remain the same.
DEWA set an indicative price range for its IPO, between 2.25 dirhams and 2.48 dirhams.
Accordingly, DEWA will now offer 8.5 billion shares, up from the 3.25 billion it initially planned to sell.
Meanwhile, the decision to increase the IPO size was based on strong investor demand and oversubscription across all tranches, according to the statement published by Bloomberg.
The statement said that about 7 percent of the company’s shares will be reserved for new strategic investors, whose shares will be subject to a lock-up period ranging between 180 and 365 days.
Also, the company’s offering as a percentage of the total capital increased from 6.5 percent to 10 percent.
Moreover, the Government of Dubai will continue to own 83 percent of DEWA’s share capital.
In addition, the retail tranche will remain unchanged ranging between 731 million dirhams and 806 million dirhams.
Furthermore, the subscription period for the DEWA IPO remains unchanged and will close on April 2, 2022 for UAE retail investors and on April 5, 2022 for qualified domestic and international institutional investors.
