Dubai to sell 25 percent stake in public parking business ‘Parkin’ IPO

The Dubai government plans to sell a 25 percent stake in the city’s public parking business in an initial public offering, pushing ahead with a privatization plan to boost its capital markets.

The Dubai Investment Fund will sell 749.7 million shares in Parkin, according to a statement.

The subscription period will open on March 5 and is expected to close March 12. The bookbuilding period for institutional investors will close on March 13.

Parkin’s IPO comes about two months after Dubai raised $315 million from the listing of the city’s taxi business.

The share sales are part of a plan unveiled at the end of 2021 to list 10 state-owned companies to boost trading volumes and match similar drives in Abu Dhabi and Riyadh.

Since then, the emirate has sold stakes in five companies, raising about $8.6 billion, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

Emirates Investment Authority and Pensions and Social Security Fund of Local Military Personnel will each have five percent of the offering reserved for them.

Parkin said it plans to pay a minimum dividend for the full fiscal year of 2024 of either 100 percent of the profit or free cash flow to equity, whichever is higher.

The energy-rich Arabian Gulf has been in the midst of an IPO boom for the last two years as governments listed state-owned companies to raise funds for a post-oil era. High crude prices and heightened international investor interest have also contributed to the IPO wave.

Emirates NBD Capital, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and HSBC Holdings Plc are joint global coordinators for Parkin’s IPO, while Rothschild & Co. is an independent financial advisor.