Dubai’s developer billionaire, Mr. Hussain Sajwani is relaunching a bid to take Damac Properties private after the securities regulator of the UAE granted approval to buy shares in the company.
Maple Invest, the investment vehicle backed by Mr. Sajwani, said in a statement that an update to the original $595 million offer made in June is expected within two weeks. The updated offer “will only address process points and not affect the material parameters of the offer, including the offer price which remains at $0.35 per share,” the company said in a statement.
Maple Invest plans to own a minimum of 90 percent and up to 100 percent of Damac, it said in a statement. Mr. Sajwani resigned as the chairman of Damac before making the offer earlier this year. The Dubai developer named vice chairman Mr. Farooq Arjomand as his replacement, while Mr. Ali Binjab was appointed as vice chairman of the company, Damac said.
Damac, which built the Middle East’s only Trump-branded golf course, has reported seven successive quarterly losses and its share price has fallen by more than 60 percent from its most recent peak in August 2017.
The company, which has projects in the UAE, Lebanon, the UK, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, narrowed its second-quarter loss this year amid continued recovery of the UAE property market.
The company reported a loss of $27.5 million in the second quarter, compared with a $76.2 million loss in the same period in 2020. Revenue for the reporting period fell to $200.1 million, from $310 million a year earlier.
Damac, which has a market capitalization of more than $2 billion, reported booked sales of $710 million for the first six months of the year and the delivery of 2,700 units in Dubai.
