Lulu Retail Holding (Lulu) has priced its offering at 2.04 UAE dirhams ($0.56) per share, at top of the range, implying a market capitalisation of AED 21.1 billion.

Lulu has raised $1.72 billion via the IPO, making it the largest UAE IPO of 2024 to date.

The offering achieved an aggregate demand of more than AED 135 billion ($37 billion) from local, regional, and international investors, with the IPO oversubscribed by more than 25 times across all tranches, excluding cornerstone investors.

More than 82,000 retail investors subscribed to the offering.

Earlier this week, the UAE retail giant, which operates supermarkets, hypermarkets, and malls across the GCC, Egypt, Far East and India, announced that it was increasing its offer size from 25% to 30%, with an allocation of 3.098 billion shares.

The additional 516,445,267 shares were wholly allocated to the Qualified Investor Offering (Tranche Two), accessible to professional investors only.

The IPO has also drawn several cornerstone investors, with Saudi Arabia’s Masarrah Investment Company named a day earlier with a commitment of AED 250 million. 

The retail giant also has cornerstone investor agreements with the Abu Dhabi Pension Fund, Bahrain’s sovereign investor, Mumtalakat Holding Company, Emirates International Investment Company LLC (EIIC) and the Oman Investment Authority.

Lulu Retail said it is targeting a total dividend pay-out ratio of 75% of annual distributable profits after tax, paid semi-annually.

The expected date of listing the shares on the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange (ADX) is 14 November.

Emirates NBD Capital, HSBC Holdings, Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank and Citigroup are joint bookrunners, with Moelis & Co. retained as Financial Advisors.

Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank, Emirates NBD Capital, First Abu Dhabi Bank, HSBC Bank Middle East and EFG Hermes are joint lead managers. FAB and ADCB are the joint lead receiving banks, and the latter also retained as a listing advisor.  

(Reporting by Bindu Rai, editing by Seban Scaria)

bindu.rai@lseg.com