Logistics firm Tristar Transport has confirmed it is to withdraw from a planned initial public offering in Dubai after failing to drum up enough interest from investors.
In a statement filed with Dubai Financial Market, Kuwait-based Agility, its parent company, announced the move, saying: “The board and existing shareholders believe that greater returns can be realised executing Tristar’s current growth strategy under the established shareholder structure.”
It added that the expectations of existing shareholders had not been met.
Tristar had set the price range for the offering at AED2.20-2.70 per share. The firm was offering up to 24 percent of its shares in the IPO, valuing it at as much as AED3.24 billion ($882 million).
The failure is another setback for Dubai’s stock exchange after the recent delistings of major companies. Tristar’s IPO would have been only the second listing in three years in the Middle East’s financial hub.
The bourse was already under pressure from shrinking volumes, with the total value of shares traded in the Dubai Financial Market at about $18 billion last year.
That put it far behind Saudi Arabia’s exchange, which saw $557 billion worth of shares change hands in 2020, a jump of 137 percent from the previous year.
Tristar had initially planned to sell shares in London, but those plans were scuttled after a fraud at London-listed firm NMC Health revealed $6 billion of hidden debt, increasing worries among global investors about governance and transparency issues at Gulf firms.
Tristar operates in 21 countries across three continents, and provides transportation and storage services to customers including Abu Dhabi National Oil Co., Total SA and Dow Inc.
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