Latham & Watkins has advised the underwriters on the initial public offering (IPO) and listing on the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange (ADX) of Investcorp Capital, a provider of capital and capital financing services in the alternative investments space.

The offer comprises 720,000,000 ordinary shares, including 321,500,000 new shares issued and sold by Investcorp Capital and 398,500,000 shares sold by the pre-existing sole shareholder Investcorp S.A., equivalent to 32.85% of its total issued share capital.

The ground-breaking IPO is the first in the UAE to utilize a price stabilization mechanism in addition to several other unique structuring and regulatory considerations.

The offering was upsized and heavily oversubscribed with strong demand from international and regional institutional investors. The final offer price for the shares was set at AED2.30 per share, implying a market capitalisation of approximately AED5.04 billion (equivalent to US$1.37 billion) at the time of listing and generating gross proceeds of AED1,656 million (equivalent to US$451 million).

Latham advised the underwriters (Citigroup Global Markets Limited, Emirates NBD Capital PSC, First Abu Dhabi Bank PJSC, Goldman Sachs International and HSBC Bank Middle East Limited) on English and UAE law matters with a team led by Dubai partners Nomaan Raja and Basil Al-Jafari, with associate David Hayward. Advice was also provided by a broad, cross-disciplinary team including London regulatory partner Rob Moulton, with associate Effie Stathaki.