Another Adnoc entity heads for share sale

FERTIGLOBE IPO WILL OFFER 13.8% STAKE IN FIRM

Another Adnoc related entity is gearing up for a stock market listing in Abu Dhabi. Fertiglobe plc — the world’s largest seaborne exporter of urea and ammonia combined — will be the next blue-chip IPO, by floating 13.8 per cent of its issued share capital. The listing is expected to be for later this month.

The entity, which is also the region’s largest producer of nitrogen fertilisers, is jointly owned by Adnoc and OCI NV. The Abu Dhabi owned energy giant Adnoc has just come off a hugely successful $1 billion plus IPO and listing of Adnoc Drilling.

Fertiglobe generated revenues of $1.55 billion for 2020 and $1.26 billion for the six months ended June 30. It had an operating cash flow generation of $520.8 million and $482 million, respectively, for these periods, while adjusted EBITDA margins were at 29.2 per cent and a solid 42.2 per cent.

First from a free zone

The Fertiglobe offering will be the first of a free zone company onshore in the UAE, and is open to all citizens and residents of the UAE as well as local and international institutional investors. “Fertiglobe offers a unique investment opportunity to access an increasingly critical global sector, while also benefiting from emerging opportunities in the low-carbon ammonia value chain and the hydrogen economy,” the company said in a statement.

The company is also getting into clean energy through a blue ammonia project at Ta’ziz in Ruwais, Abu Dhabi. According to Dr. Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, UAE Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology and Adnoc’s Managing Director and Group CEO, “Fertiglobe’s IPO follows the very recent and highly successful listing of Adnoc Drilling on the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange, exemplifying Adnoc’s pivotal role in driving the growth and diversification of the nation’s economy, supporting the further development of the UAE’s private sector and equity capital markets, and attracting foreign direct investment into Abu Dhabi and the UAE ...”. (Dr. Al Jaber is also the Fertiglobe Chairman.)

Apart from the Ruwais plant in Abu Dhabi, Fertiglobe operates the Egyptian Fertilizers Company and Egypt Basic Industries Corporation in Egypt and the Sorfert Algérie Spa in Algeria.

Fertiglobe’s will be the first listing of a free zone company at an ‘onshore’ stock market in the UAE.