Dubai's FIVE Holdings mulls IPO and listing in London or New York: Report

Arabian Business

3 days ago

FIVE Holdings, the Dubai-based company that owns the FIVE brand of hotels, is said to be considering listing in London or New York, according to a Reuters report.
Founder and Chairman Kabir Mulchandani, who has targeted a 2025 IPO for the past couple of years, had previously spoken of a primary listing in Dubai and a secondary listing in one of the international markets.
The Reuters report cites three people with knowledge of the matter.
Five Holdings IPO
FIVE Holdings did not respond to Reuters' request for comments, but the agency said that London could be a strong candidate, given a majority of clients at FIVE's Ibiza clubs are British nationals and that business generates significant revenues for the group.
In November 2023, FIVE Holdings acquired a 100 per cent equity interest in the Pacha Group, in a deal valued at €302.5m ($345m).
That same year, Muchandani spoke about the IPO for the first time and said: 'The plan right now is 2025. For us, we are very well capitalised now, the goal is to continue to improve our transparency and our governance, to do the investor calls on a quarterly basis and to act like a public company, before we become a become a public company, and not to raise money and then figure out what to do.
'There are always a lot of advisors saying, look at Dubai, but also look at another international market. I think that may not be the correct advice to take it forward.
'The way the Dubai capital markets is developing over the last few years, it is entirely possible. At the end of the day, even though we are global, we are a made-in-Dubai company. So, for us, being part of Dubai capital markets is a critical part of our story.'
Mulchandani also said that the IPO was very important for FIVE Holdings because of the employee stock options programme that it was rolling out.
'One of the major reasons why we would like to do this is because we are launching a very, very important employee stock option program,' said Mulchandani.
'A significant portion of the company is going to be dedicated to the employees over time. And this is not just the C-suite, not the CEOs and the senior people. This is down to the person who is going to bring your bags up to your rooms.
'It's a very widely distributed stock. The goal is to make sure that they have the liquidity and see what the value of the work and the effort they're putting in.'
The company and its advisers are planning to start the listing process by the end of the year, two of the people in know told Reuters.
The three people spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak publicly.