Monday, Sep 29, 2014

By Asa Fitch

DUBAI--Dubai-based retail giant Emaar Malls Group's $1.58 billion initial public offering was heavily oversubscribed amid strong demand from retail and institutional investors, the company said Monday.

The offering is the most hotly anticipated IPO in Dubai in years. Emaar Malls is the first major standalone retailer ever to list in Dubai, giving investors direct exposure to one of the emirate's most important economic sectors for the first time.

The IPO was priced at AED2.9, at the top of a range set earlier in September, EMG said.

The institutional tranche of the IPO order book was more than 30 times oversubscribed and the individual portion was 20 times oversubscribed at the top of the price range, according to the company.

The final allocations were approximately 70% to institutional investors and 30% to individual investors, it said.

Emaar Malls is a spinoff of Emaar Properties (EMAAR.DFM), Dubai's biggest listed property developer. The Emaar Malls portfolio consists of about 5.9 million square feet of leasable area across 34 malls and shopping centers.

Its flagship asset is the Dubai Mall, the emirate's largest. Located next to the Burj Khalifa - the world's tallest building, the Dubai Mall has over 1,000 tenants and attracted about 75 million visitors last year, the most of any mall in the world.

Emaar Properties is selling 15% of Emaar Malls through the IPO, giving investors a direct slice of its retail empire for the first time. Retail sales are one pillar of Dubai's economy, alongside trade, tourism, transport and logistics.

Emaar Malls will be listed on the Dubai Financial Market, where shares are set to start trading Thursday. The shares are being sold only in the United Arab Emirates, the seven-member federation of which Dubai is a part.

The listing comes as several local companies consider IPOs, encouraged by strong stock-market performance in recent years. The DFM's main index more than doubled last year and is up by another 50% this year.

Another local retail-oriented company called Marka, which unlike Emaar Malls is just starting and has no significant operations or revenues, listed shares last week. It was the first IPO on the DFM in more than five years.

Write to Asa Fitch at asa.fitch@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

29-09-14 0543GMT