Healthy appetite for Abraaj sale of Thai Hot Pot stake

The Abraaj Group, a Dubai-based private equity firm, has exited its investment in the restaurant chain Hot Pot by floating its shares on the Thai stock exchange.

The share sale was more than three times oversubscribed, Abraaj said. The group first invested in Hot Pot's parent company, Suki Shabu, in 2006.

Since then revenues have grown by about 25 per cent annually, with the average number of customers per month jumping to 570,000 from 250,000.

"Achieving such a heavily oversubscribed share offering in what has been a globally weak IPO market is a great result," said Omar Lodhi, an Abraaj senior partner.

This is the third time Abraaj has sold one of its investments in South East Asia this year. It previously sold its stake in the Indonesian sweets company Yupi and exited its investment in Cirtech Electronics by selling shares on the Philippine Stock Exchange.

Abraaj's other investments include Mediaquest in the UAE and Al Borg Laboratories in Egypt.