Three firms that put their initial public offering plans on hold have until the end of September to complete an offering or reapply to the regulator for listing approval, according to Semafor. Under CMA rules, companies get a six month window to complete a share sale after receiving regulatory approval, and missing it forces them to restart the process.
The pause follows an earlier withdrawal. Semafor reported that construction company Mutlaq Al Ghowairi pulled a share sale that would have valued it at USD 799 million because of weak investor demand. That deal was the first significant listing to test investor appetite since the onset of the Iran war.
Equity performance has not been the constraint. The bourse is up almost 7% since the start of the year after recovering its initial losses following the Iran conflict, per Semafor. That reverses part of the prior stretch, when the same index declined more than 12% over the year.
Regional comparators have diverged. The Dubai Financial Market is down nearly 3% since the start of the year, while the main Abu Dhabi index is up 0.4%, according to Semafor.
The six month clock is the operative mechanism here. Approval from the regulator is not an open-ended licence to list, so issuers that judge demand too thin to price a book must either force a deal into a soft window or re-enter the queue and start the review again. The Mutlaq Al Ghowairi withdrawal set the reference point for that judgement, showing that a valuation near USD 799 million could not be cleared with investors on the terms offered.
For the three firms now holding back, the calendar narrows the options to a September decision.