Hussain Sajwani delays bid to take Damac private as market regulator reviews deal

Mr Sajwani, who owns 72% of Damac, plans to fully acquire shares of the developer and delist it

Maple Invest, the company planning to take Damac Properties private has postponed its acquisition offer, pending a regulatory review. Reuters

Maple Invest, the company that plans to take Damac Properties private, is delaying its offer to acquire publicly-traded shares of the Dubai developer as the transaction is pending a regulatory review.

Damac received a formal letter from Maple notifying it of its intention to postpone the acquisition, the company said in a filing to the Dubai Financial Market, where its shares currently trade.

“Given that the Securities and Commodities Authority is undergoing a review in this respect, it has been decided to postpone the acquisition procedures until the review is concluded,” Maple said in the letter to Damac.

Maple Invest, a British Virgin Islands company owned by Dubai billionaire Hussain Sajwani, plans to make a voluntary and conditional offer to acquire shares in the issued and paid up share capital of Damac that will result in it owning no less than 90 per cent and up to 100 per cent, it said in a June 9 statement.

Mr Sajwani, who currently owns 72 per cent of the company, has submitted an offer to acquire the remaining stake at Dh1.30 per share, amounting to about Dh2.185 billion ($595 million).

Once Maple receives acceptance from more than 90 per cent of the shareholders, it plans to acquire the remaining shares through a mandatory offer under a "squeeze out" agreement and then delist, the investment company said at the time.

Mr Sajwani resigned as the chairman of Damac prior to making the offer. On June 15, the Dubai developer named vice chairman Farooq Arjomand as his replacement while Ali Binjab was appointed as vice chairman of the company, Damac said in a statement.

The company also appointed KPMG Lower Gulf as valuer and Arqaam Capital as financial adviser to evaluate the offer from Maple. Al Tamimi & Company has been named as legal adviser.

Damac, which built the Middle East’s only Trump-branded golf course, has reported six successive quarterly losses and its share price has fallen by more than 60 per cent from its most recent peak in August 2017.

The company, which has projects in the UAE, Lebanon, the UK, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, reported a loss of Dh189.6m in the first quarter of this year, compared with a Dh106.1m loss in the same period last year.

As of March 31, it had delivered 33,334 homes and had a development portfolio of 33,000 more units at various stages of progress and planning, according to its website.