By IANS
Dubai : Depa, a leading provider of interior contracting services in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA,) has announced that it would pursue primary listing of its shares on the Dubai International Financial Exchange (DIFX) and a listing of global depositary receipts (GDRs) on the London Stock Exchange (LSE).
The Depa group of companies operates principally in the luxury fit-out sector with a focus primarily on the hospitality, commercial and residential property, airport, retail, yacht and specialist fit-out sectors.
“The listing is the next step in our development as we look to exploit strong expansion opportunities across the fast growing developing countries of the MENA and South Asia region,” Depa chairman Abdullah Al Mazrui said here.
“Economic growth has fuelled the number of construction projects in the hospitality, residential and commercial property sectors and this gives us a highly visible and high quality project pipeline. Consequently we see this as an appropriate time to approach both regional and international investors to participate in that opportunity and our Company’s future.”
Depa and some of its existing shareholders will offer the shares and GDRs in a global offering to institutional investors and in the UAE, the shares will be offered to certain eligible residents and corporates with qualifying investment accounts in the UAE.
The company will not receive any of the proceeds from the sale of the shares and GDRs by existing shareholders.
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New Islamic bank to come up this year
A new Islamic bank with a total capital of $11 billion will be established by the fourth quarter of this year.
“We have a huge responsibility to develop this land of Allah beyond the concept of real estate and the new entity will be exactly tapping those potentials among the OIC (Organisation of Islamic Countries) member states as well as other markets,” reports here quoted Shaikh Saleh Abdulla Kamel, chairman of the world’s largest Islamic banking group, Al Baraka Banking Group (ABG), as saying on the sidelines of the annual general assembly of the bank in Manama.
He said initially the bank’s capital would be $11 billon, against which the bank is planning to raise $110 billion from funds and over $200 billion from ‘sukuks’ or Islamic bonds.
Kamel said the founding shareholders would include ABG, the Jeddah-based Islamic Development Bank, the Kuwait Real Estate Bank, the Saudi Investment Bank, the Bahrain Islamic Bank and other prominent Islamic institutions and individuals.
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UAE telecom operator plans in-flight mobile services
UAE-based telecom services provider Du has said its customers would soon be able to use their mobiles and PDAs to make calls, send messages and surf the internet, while flying on a number of airlines.
“This service is to provide more choices for our customers and is not necessarily for making money,” Andrew Grenville, Du executive vice-president for international and wholesale, told Gulf News.
The company is now in the testing phase with OnAir, the Swiss provider of mobile services on airline. It completed the soft launch of their in-flight services on Dubai-based Emirates Airline through the UK-based provider AeroMobile, earlier this year.
This month, Emirates became the first commercial airline in the world to provide in-flight mobile telephony service to passengers.
The first authorised mobile phone call from a commercial flight was made March 21 at 30,000 feet on board an Emirates Airbus A340-300 aircraft flying from Dubai to Casablanca in Morocco.
According to the report, OnAir has agreements in place with Air France, BMI, TAP, Royal Jordanian, Kingfisher Airlines, Shenzhen Airlines, Air Asia and Air Asia X, while AeroMobile will provide their services through Emirates.
“We are trying to cover as many locations as we can by working with the two in-flight mobile services providers,” Grenville said.
“The partners will enter into agreements with airlines to maximise in-flight services.”