Dubai Taxi IPO: Company increases shares offered to retail investors

Overall offering size remains unchanged at 624.75 million shares, representing 24.99 per cent of total issued share capital

Dubai Taxi Company is the latest state-owned company to seek a listing. Antonie Robertson / The National

Dubai Taxi Company increased the total number of shares allocated to retail investors in its initial public offering, amid strong demand from subscribers.

The UAE retail offer was increased to 74.97 million shares from about 62.48 million shares, the company said in a statement on Tuesday.

This represents 12 per cent of the total shares offered in the IPO, up from 10 per cent previously, “due to significant demand and oversubscription”, DTC said.

The offering size remains unchanged at 624.75 million shares, representing 24.99 per cent of DTC’s total issued share capital, according to the company.

Following the increased allocation to the UAE retail offer, the qualified investor tranche has been reduced to 549.78 million shares from about 562.28 million shares, representing 88 per cent of the total shares offered.

The subscription period for qualified investors closes on Wednesday, while it closed for retail investors on Tuesday.

Dubai Taxi Company is looking to raise as much as Dh1.16 billion ($315 million) through its listing on the Dubai Financial Market as part of the emirate’s push to broaden its capital markets.

The price range for the public float has been set between Dh1.80 and Dh1.85 per share. The company expects to announce the final offer price on November 30.

The size of the retail tranche will now be valued between Dh135 million and Dh139 million, based on the previously announced price range, the company said.

Completion of the offering and listing is currently expected to take place on December 7.

Dubai announced plans in November 2021 to list 10 state-owned companies to increase the size of its financial market to Dh3 trillion ($816.8 billion), as well as set up a Dh2bn market-maker fund to encourage the listing of more private companies from sectors such as energy, logistics and retail.

Four of the announced 10 state-owned enterprises listed on Dubai Financial Market last year.

The listing of Dubai Electricity and Water Authority was the largest GCC IPO last year, raising $6.1 billion.

State-owned Tecom, Salik and Empower collectively raised $2.2 billion in June, September and November 2022, respectively.

Overall, Middle East IPOs raised more than $23 billion in 2022, compared with $7.52 billion from 20 offerings in the previous year.

That was the highest share for the Gulf region after 2019, when Saudi Aramco went public in a $29 billion offering, the world’s largest.

Dubai Taxi Company was founded in 1995 and has a fleet of about 7,000 vehicles that service Dubai's growing population. It is the biggest taxi operator in the emirate and currently holds about 44 per cent market share.

Emirates NBD Capital, First Abu Dhabi Bank and EFG Hermes UAE have been appointed as the joint lead managers for the IPO.

The lead receiving bank is Emirates NBD.