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Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) head office building.
Shares of Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) jumped around 20 percent on stock market debut as it marked its first day of trading on the Dubai Financial Market (DFM) on Tuesday.
The company’s shares rose from its IPO price of 2.48 dirhams a share to 2.98 dirhams at 10 a.m.
DEWA, which has a paid-up share capital of 500 million dirhams, raised 22.32 billion dirhams ($6.1 billion) in the largest initial public offering (IPO) in the Gulf region since Saudi Aramco’s record-breaking share sale in 2019.
It sold nine billion shares at its recent IPO, representing 18 percent of its issued share capital, with the final offer price pegged at 2.48 dirhams per share.
The IPO attracted $85.76 billion (315 billion dirhams) of demand from different investors, including 65 individuals, as well as sovereign wealth funds and private fund.
Dubai seeks to boost trading liquidity in the equity market with DEWA’s IPO and stock listing.
The state-owned utility company made more than 23.8 billion in revenue in 2021, up from 22.46 billion in the previous year.
DEWA is the exclusive provider of electricity and potable water to Dubai’s 3.5 million residents, with a daily generation capacity of 13.4 gigawatts of electricity and 490 million imperial gallons of desalinated water.
(Reporting by Cleofe Maceda; editing by Seban Scaria)
