Americana Restaurant International, the largest quick service restaurant operator in the MENA region, announced Wednesday its plans to sell 30 percent of its share capital in an initial public offering (IPO) and dual-list on stock markets in Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi.
Adeptio Investments AD Ltd., the selling shareholder, intends to offer more than 2.5 billion ordinary shares of Americana Restaurants, representing 30% of the total issued share capital of Americana Restaurants, in a public and concurrent Offering on ADX in the UAE and on the Saudi Exchange in Saudi Arabia.
The net proceeds of the Offering will be received by the Selling Shareholder.
The Company is registered and incorporated in the Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM) and is subject to the ADGM Companies Regulations 2020, as amended.
The Selling Shareholder owns 96% of the total issued share capital of Americana Restaurants and is the jointly-held investment vehicle of Mohamed Ali Rashed Alabbar, founder of Emaar Properties, and Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF).
Americana Restaurants' Chairman, Mohamed Ali Rashed Alabbar, said, “It gives us great pleasure to announce the start of our IPO process, a major milestone in our fifty-plus year history.”
Alabbar said that a concurrent dual listing on ADX and the Saudi Exchange marks a first-of-its-kind transaction for both markets, and no company could be better suited than Americana Restaurants to carry this torch.
“With macroeconomic and demographic tailwinds that support our accelerating growth, this is an exciting time to be inviting investors in the UAE, Saudi Arabia and internationally to share in our onward journey of success,” he stressed.
Reports on Wednesday said the Offering is expected to run from November 14 until November 21 for retail investors in the UAE and Saudi Arabia and from November 14 until November 22 for institutional investors.
Meanwhile, admission of the Offer Shares to trading on ADX and the Saudi Exchange is expected to take place on or around December 6.
Americana said it intends to maintain a “robust dividend policy” and make a partial dividend distribution of about 755 of its net profit attributable to the parent company for the second half of this year.
It expects to pay the dividend in cash during the first half of next year.
From 2023 onwards, the company intends to adopt an annual dividend distribution policy and plans to distribute a minimum of 50% of its profit in dividend, “with the intention to further distribute any cash not specifically reserved for general corporate purposes, growth investment or mergers and acquisition activity”, Americana said.
It stressed that the Offering is being conducted, among other reasons, to allow the Selling Shareholder to sell part of its holdings to more actively manage and optimize its portfolio of assets, while providing trading liquidity in the Offer Shares.
The Offering is also expected to raise the profile of the Company with the domestic and international investment community.
Americana Restaurants achieved $2.05 billion in revenues for the year ended December 31, 2021.
Revenue for the first six months of this year stood at $1.15 billion.
The Group also recorded a net profit attributable to the parent company of $121 million for the six months to the end of June while its full-year 2021 profit reached $204m.
