By Yessar Rosendar
October 23, 2024
Lulu Retail Holdings—a Middle East hypermarket chain founded by Indian billionaire M.A. Yusuff Ali—plans to sell a 25% stake and list the company on the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange (ADX) in what could be the biggest IPO in the United Arab Emirates this year.
The company plans to sell 2.5 billion shares and will announce the final offering price after the second tranche subscription is complete, Lulu Retail said in a statement this week. The IPO could raise as much as $1.8 billion, Reuters reported, citing unnamed sources. That eclipses the $877 million raised by NMDC Energy, a provider of dredging equipment for the oil and gas industry, in August from its maid share sale.
Lulu’s IPO will run from October 28 to November 5 and trading on ADX is expected to begin on November 14.
“It’s with immense pride that we announce the planned IPO of Lulu Retail on ADX, bringing to market the largest pan-GCC full-line retailer by selling space, sales and number of stores,” Yusuff Ali, chairman of Lulu Retail said in the statement.
The company founded in 1974 is upbeat about the retail growth in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), which consists of Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. Lulu runs more than 240 stores in the six GCC countries and at the same time operates an e-commerce platform that serves more than 600,000 shoppers daily.
Lulu’s revenue rose 5.4% year-on-year to $3.9 billion in the first six months of the year, sustaining growth momentum in 2023 when full-year revenues increased 5.8% to $7.3 billion from the previous year.
“With GCC retail presenting a $100 billion market opportunity over the next five years and our business in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia primed for further growth, we are confident that Lulu will continue to be where the world comes to shop,” Saifee Rupawala, CEO of Lulu Retail said in the statement.
Lulu’s founder Yusuff Ali has an estimated net worth of $7.4 billion, according to Forbes' real-time data. In 1973, he left his village in Kerala state to join his uncle's small distribution business in Abu Dhabi. Under his leadership, that business grew into the Lulu Group, a major retail conglomerate, that had reportedly attracted a member of Abu Dhabi's royal family to invest $1 billion for a 20% stake in Lulu in 2020.
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