LuLu Group’s retail arm, Lulu Retail, raised AED 6.3 bn from its IPO after setting its final price at the top end of its range at AED 2.04 per share, giving it a market cap of AED 21.1 bn, according to a statement (pdf). The company received some AED 135 bn in orders from local, regional and international investors at the close of the offering period — the highest for a non-government IPO in the past decade.
The order book was 25x oversubscribed, excluding cornerstone investors, the company said.
Who’s in? The retail portion of the offering attracted over 82k retail investors, breaking the record for a UAE IPO over the past 10 years, according to the statement. For the institutional portion, Gulf sovereign wealth funds — including Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund and Hassana, Qatar Investment Authority and Kuwait Investment Authority — also invested in the IPO, alongside global investors Vanguard Group and Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC, Bloomberg cites Lulu founder Yusuff Ali as saying at a press conference.
Refresher: Other key cornerstone investors, including the Abu Dhabi Pension Fund, Bahrain Mumtalakat, Emirates International Investment Company, and Oman Investment Authority, previously committed around AED 753 mn in shares. Saudi Arabia’s Masarrah Invest also invested an additional AED 250 mn in the IPO, bringing the total raised from cornerstone investors to AED 1 bn.
Shares will start trading on the ADX on Thursday, 14 November, under the ticker LULU, the statement reads.
Refresher: Initially, the supermarket giant aimed to list a 25% stake on the ADX. Lulu Retail later ramped up the size of its IPO amid heightened demand, offering up to a 30% stake in the company, with all additional shares allocated to institutional investors.
The IPO is the UAE’s biggest this year. Lulu’s IPO tops recent IPOs like NMDC Energy’s AED 3.2 bn in September, Alef Education’s AED 1.9 bn IPO, and ADNH Catering’s AED 864 mn listing last month.
ADVISORS- Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank, Citigroup, Emirates NBD Capital and HSBC Holdings are acting as joint coordinators and bookrunners, while Alrajhi Capital, EFG Hermes UAE, First Abu Dhabi Bank, and Goldman Sachs have been tapped as bookrunners. ADCB, Citigroup, Emirates NBD Capital, HSBC Holdings, and EFG Hermes UAE are also joint lead managers, while FAB and ADCB are joint lead receiving banks, along with our friends at Mashreq, Dubai Islamic Bank, Emirates Islamic Bank, and Emirates NBD, who are acting as receiving banks. Moelis & Co. is also acting as an independent financial advisor.