
Meraas Holding, owned by Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid, announced to initiate public offering for its theme park project by the end of 2014. The public offering of 40% of the Dubai Parks and Resorts is thought to bring in about AED 2.5 billion, which will be spent on the construction and development of the Legoland, Hollywood amusement resort and the Bollywood theme park. This is reported by The National.
Meraas’s decision to offer its shares to the public has been taken in consideration of Dubai stock market, which has seen an increase in the total stock index in the last one year and –a –half. This has also been made possible by the effort made by Dubai to redistribute its debt and escalate government projects on infrastructure and tourism.
Three banks Goldman Sachs, HSBC and Emirates NBD have been selected to take care of the IPO. Moreover, Bloomberg said that Dubai Parks and Resorts will be listed on the Dubai Financial Market. EFG Hermes, an Egyptian investment bank will also be involved in the sale of shares.
The recovery of UAE’s economy, which saw a 4% increase, and the stock market has encouraged other big real estate companies like Emaar to also put up their shares for sale. Emaar has also decided to make the shares of its mall group’s public from Sunday.
The three theme parks will be built near the Dubai 2020 Expo site and the new Al Maktoum airport and are considered a part of the government’s initiative to increase yearly visitors to 20 million by 2020.