#Dubai faces up to rivals as it plans stock exchange revival with IPO offerings | Financial Times

Dubai faces up to rivals as it plans stock exchange revival with IPO offerings | Financial Times

Competition is heating up in the capital markets of the United Arab Emirates, as Dubai seeks to revive its ailing stock exchange with a flurry of initial public offerings. 

The government of the UAE’s commercial hub plans to privatise 10 state-backed companies, listing some of their shares on Dubai’s domestic bourse in a bid to rival the success of neighbouring emirate Abu Dhabi and regional powerhouse Saudi Arabia. Officials also hope to root more regulatory oversight within Dubai, rather than keeping it at a federal level. 

Those moves come after several lacklustre years for Dubai equities, which have failed to revisit the dizzy heights reached during the mid-2000s. 

Dubai’s government launched its stock exchange with a Dh50m ($14m) bank loan in 2000. Within half a decade, the fledgling bourse had soared to a total market capitalisation of $120bn, three times the size of Dubai’s gross domestic product at the time.