“Our long-term goal is to do an IPO,” Chairman and Founder Kabir Mulchandani told Bloomberg TV on Wednesday. “This year is definitely out, we would be looking at it in 2025,” he said.
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As a ‘Made in Dubai’ brand, the firm will target a primary listing in the emirate, Mulchandani said. “We would look at possibly London as well, but I think the way the Dubai capital markets are growing, it might just be a Dubai listing,” he said.
FIVE — which owns one of Dubai’s biggest party hotels, where guests can drive a supercar right into the nightclub for a fee of 10,000 dirhams ($2,723) — recently scored a top ESG rating to sell a debut green bond. This year it started offering parties on a 16-passenger private jet for $14,000 an hour.
The firm would join a number of private companies lining up to list in the United Arab Emirates, which has seen a surge in IPOs since late 2021 on the back of higher oil prices and a government privatization drive. However, state-owned entities have dominated listing activity, and money exchange firm Al Ansari Financial Services is the only privately-owned company to have gone public in the country this year.
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Advanced Inhalation Rituals, the owner of shisha brand Al Fakher, and Dubizzle Group, which operates classifieds websites popular with expatriates, are among private companies looking to list in the UAE, Bloomberg News has reported.
— With assistance by Greg Tanner
