Middle East alternative asset manager Investcorp set the price range on Thursday for the initial public offering (IPO) of its investment vehicle, potentially raising up to $402.7 million with an equity valuation of up to $1.37 billion.

The price range for Investcorp Capital was set at 1.90 dirhams ($0.5173) to 2.30 dirhams per share, said the company. It plans to offer 643 million ordinary shares and wants to list on the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange.

Reuters reported in June some of the initial plans for the vehicle, which will operate as an independent company, and hold Investcorp's private market co-investments across assets including credit, real estate and private equity.

Founded in 1982, making it one of the oldest Middle Eastern private equity houses, Investcorp is best known in the globally for listing luxury goods brands such as Gucci and Tiffany & Co, but it has increasingly branched out into other sectors.

Investcorp said on Thursday that IVC Strategic Investment, a special purpose vehicle, signed up as a cornerstone investor in the IPO with a commitment of roughly $250 million.

The vehicle was set up to act as an aggregator of orders from certain wealth management investors and a prominent Abu Dhabi-based investor, the company added.

The vehicle includes the top 160 investors from the six Gulf countries and the IPO has been covered in the first hour by strong demand from local, Gulf and international institutional investors, a source familiar with the matter said.

Investcorp declined to comment.

Investcorp joins a growing number of companies looking to list in the region, where there were 23 new stock market listings in the first half of 2023, more than any other first-half total since 2008.

IPO activity in the Gulf is picking up after the pace slowed from an exceptional 2022. Saudi Arabia and the UAE led new listings that year, raising nearly $22 billion - more than half the total for the wider Europe, Middle East and Africa region, Dealogic data shows.

By contrast, private equity firm CVC has postponed plans for a European IPO this year, a person with direct knowledge of the plans said on Wednesday.

Europe's biggest buyout group decided not to go ahead with the listing due to unfavourable market conditions, the person said, speaking on condition of anonymity. ($1 = 3.6726 UAE dirham)

(Reporting by Chandni Shah in Bengaluru; Editing by Sonali Paul and Janane Venkatraman, Robert Birsel)