UAE technology company Alpha Data aims to raise up to Dh600 million ($163.4 million) through its initial public offering on the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange, in a sign of strong demand for listings.
The digital transformation services provider has set a price range of between Dh1.45 and Dh1.50 per share, it said on Thursday.
Bin Hamoodah Company and Ibbini Investment, the selling shareholders, aim to float 400 million shares, comprising 40 per cent of Alpha Data's total issued share capital, on the ADX's main bourse.
Based on its offer price, the company will have a market valuation of up to Dh1.5 billion at the time of listing, it said.
Retail and other UAE investors will be able to subscribe to the shares on offer in the first tranche, which will make up 5 per cent of the IPO, while the remaining 95 per cent is reserved for professional investors in the second tranche, the company said.
Alpha Dhabi expects to distribute a dividend of Dh130 million in 2025.
The subscription period began on Thursday, February 20, and will close on February 25. The final offer price is slated to be announced on February 26 after a book-building process.
Alpha Data has been “encouraged by the strong interest” in its IPO, which reflects the strength of the technology sector in the UAE, founder and chief executive Fayez Ibbini said.
“Our IPO marks … an opportunity to invest in a home-grown UAE family business with strong fundamentals underpinned by macro-trends in the information and communications technology sector, including the rapid growth of agentic artificial intelligence,” he said.
Agentic AI are systems that can autonomously make decisions and act on it with limited supervision.
“With our recently established presence in Saudi Arabia and Qatar, Alpha Data is well-positioned to drive further growth across key business verticals, supported by our main operations in the UAE,” Mr Ibbini added.
Alpha Data is the latest company seeking to sell shares to the public amid a listing boom driven by robust investor demand for new issues.
The company is seeking to tap into the technology boom in the UAE, where the government has continued to champion digital transformation and the adoption of emerging innovations as it transitions to the economy of the future.
The continued economic momentum in the UAE, the Arab world's second-largest economy, has also boosted listings across sectors on both Abu Dhabi bourse and the Dubai Financial Market.
Alpha Data's planned listing follows a string of IPOs over the past year. Talabat Holding, the Middle Eastern unit of Germany's food delivery platform Delivery Hero, raised Dh7.5 billion in November in what was the Gulf's biggest IPO last year. Also that month, UAE retail major Lulu Group raised Dh6.32 billion.
Other UAE IPOs in 2024 included NMDC Energy, a unit of Abu Dhabi contractor National Marine Dredging Company, raising $877 million, and Alef Education, which raised $515 million.
Analysts say the pipeline of IPO deals in the UAE remains strong amid robust expansion of the non-oil sector in the economy. The government's push to unlock value in state entities, and to sell stakes, is also supporting deal flows.
Dubai Investments, a diversified company in which the sovereign wealth fund Investment Corporation of Dubai holds a stake, last month said it plans to take four of its subsidiaries public.
