Dubai’s Parkin surges 30% in UAE’s first IPO of the year

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Shares of Dubai parking operator Parkin surged more than 30% Thursday as the company went public on the Dubai Financial Market.

Parkin’s price per share jumped to 2.73 dirhams ($0.74) as trading began, marking an overwhelmingly positive debut for the United Arab Emirates’ first public listing of the year. Shares were initially priced at the top end of their range at 2.1 dirhams, giving the company a valuation of $1.7 billion.

Raising 1.57 billion dirhams ($429 million) for its IPO, Parkin was oversubscribed by 165 times, seeing demand of 259 billion dirhams — a record for the exchange.

Parkin is the largest provider of paid parking in Dubai, and is set to see further demand as the city’s population grows.

Its owner, the Dubai Investment Fund, offered a 25% stake in its listing of the company and demand from state institutions and families has been high, suggesting a robust appetite for Gulf investment.

The float follows a relatively quiet period for listings in Dubai, after a marathon year of public offerings in 2022 that saw many of the emirate’s major public utilities and critical infrastructure operators go public.

Those included Dubai power and water utility DEWA — the city’s largest-ever IPO raising 22.3 billion dirhams in April 2022 — as well as toll operator Salik, district cooling services provider Empower, and Dubai Taxi.