How Dubai's Marka missed its mark | ZAWYA MENA Edition:
The flotation of retail group Marka on the Dubai Financial Market (DFM) five years ago generated a real buzz among capital markets participants in the United Arab Emirates, and with good reason.
Marka’s initial public offering (IPO) in April 2014 was the first to take place on the Dubai Financial Market (DFM) in more than five years and the company counted many of the UAE’s business elite among its 151 founding shareholders, such as Aldar Properties chairman Abubaker Al Khoori and Khaled Almheiri, founder of Evolvence Capital. The company raised a total of around 500 million dirhams ($133.4 million) - 225 million dirhams from founding shareholders and 275 million via the IPO.
Starting from scratch, Marka vowed to become an international player in dining and retail, but it would be an understatement to say that things haven’t worked out as planned. Five years on from going public, its shareholders want to liquidate the loss-making firm after it defaulted on debts that total six times its dwindling annual revenue.
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