Qatar delays listing of $12bn firm

A planned stock market listing for Doha Global Investment Co., a $ 12 billion Qatari investment company backed by assets from the Gulf state's sovereign wealth fund, has been postponed, a senior bourse official said yesterday. Qatar unveiled plans to create the investment company in February and said that sovereign fund Qatar Holding will transfer $ 3 billion of assets into the Doha Global, with a similar amount raised in an initial public offering (IPO) on the Qatar Exchange. The IPO has been postponed "until all requirements and approvals from the concerned authorities are obtained", Hussein Ali Al-Abdullah, acting chairman of both Qatar Holding and the bourse, said in a statement. Qatar is planning a wave of new listings as the gas-rich state seeks to share its wealth with its citizens. State-owned Qatar Petroleum aims to offer shares in four of its businesses in the coming years, Abdullah said this month. Bankers and analysts have questioned the Qatar stock market's ability to absorb such listings. The benchmark index fell 5.5 percent over the two months after the initial announcement of the Doha Global IPO as retail investors sold stocks to set aside cash for Doha Global shares. Institutional buying has helped the index to recover from April's three-and-a-half-month low. It is now up 5.8 percent this year, though it still lags behind other Gulf markets such as Dubai. Doha Global's IPO was scheduled for May and was to be open only to citizens, companies and institutions in Qatar. Foreign investors will be able to buy the shares only after the company is listed on the market. A new date for the IPO will be announced in the local news media, Al-Abdullah said, without providing additional details. Credit Suisse, the Swiss bank in which Qatar's sovereign fund is a key shareholder, is advising on the Doha Global IPO. Source: ArabNews