Foreign companies look to fill gap in UAE IPO market
- Potential listings pushed back
- ‘High-quality entities in discussions’
- Iran war ‘didn’t create slowdown’
Companies from Europe, the Middle East and Africa are exploring stock market listings in the UAE as the Gulf’s initial public offering (IPO) surge of recent years slows against the backdrop of the US-Iran conflict.
Foreign-incorporated companies account for only a small fraction of listings on the Dubai Financial Market and the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange, but interest from overseas businesses may change that.
The UAE entered 2026 expecting three or four IPOs, with several companies targeting market debuts between April and June, according to Hitesh Asarpota, CEO of Emirates NBD Capital.
Several of the country’s most closely watched IPO candidates have been pushed back or remain on hold, including Dubai Investments Park, a mixed-use real estate development pencilled in before year-end.
While digital classifieds company Dubizzle has yet to revive plans for a Dubai listing that it postponed last year, Etihad Airways and Binghatti Holding, a real estate developer, are also among companies widely tipped as potential future candidates.
Despite the disruption caused by the US-Iran conflict, however, Asarpota said there had been growing interest from companies outside the Gulf in tapping Dubai’s capital markets.
“There have been a lot of inquiries from quality companies outside the GCC to list in the UAE,” he said, without identifying the candidates.
“We’ve had some really high-quality entities in discussions to probably look at a listing in this part of the world.”
The slowdown in Gulf IPO activity, however, cannot be blamed solely on the conflict, said Hesham Mohamed, chief executive of Graystone Capital, an investment adviser with headquarters in Singapore.
“The conflict didn’t create this slowdown,” he said. “It interrupted what was already becoming a more selective, valuation-disciplined market.”
Salah Shamma, head of investment in the Middle East and North Africa for fund manager Franklin Templeton, said investors had already become more selective before the conflict after a wave of similar IPOs created signs of saturation.
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But Shamma said appetite for companies in new sectors or with strong growth prospects persisted, provided they were priced correctly.
“With the right pricing, I think any issue that comes to market can do very well,” he said.
IPO proceeds across the GCC had already fallen from a record $13.7 billion across 53 listings in 2024 to about $7 billion in 2025, Mohamed said, as lower oil prices, stretched valuations and a shift in global investor flows towards US and artificial intelligence-related stocks weakened the market.
The conflict then sharply reduced issuer and investor confidence, prompting several companies to delay or withdraw planned listings.
Asarpota said international investors should retain interest in the region’s listings. But while these have typically accounted for between 15 and 25 percent of demand for UAE IPOs, in particular, he expects that figure to drop to about 10 to 15 percent as conditions stabilise.
