© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: Omar Abuinnab, Chief Government of Keyper, a property expertise agency that has simply arrange in Dubai, poses for an image, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates February 3, 2022. Image taken February 3, 2022. REUTERS/Hadeel Al Sayegh
By Hadeel Al Sayegh
DUBAI (Reuters) – Confronted with deal charges within the Gulf area a fraction of these in markets elsewhere, many Dubai bankers are handing of their notices, attracted by the lure of cashing out, inventory choices and share grants at startups.
Veteran funding banker Omar Abuinnab is certainly one of them. He left Guggenheim Companions’ Center East unit in December to arrange Keyper, a Dubai actual property expertise start-up.
Launched in January, Keyper describes itself as a non-public banker to actual property traders. Such “proptech” corporations represent a burgeoning world business, which has secured $2.6 billion of world funding in 2019, up from $1 billion in 2016, based on a KPMG report in 2020.
Abuinnab isn’t alone. Former Moelis (NYSE:) & Co banker Youssef Salem moved to Dubai-based transport startup Swvl, which in July introduced a merger with U.S. blank-check firm Queen’s Gambit. The deal valued Swvl at roughly $1.5 billion.
Amit Agarwal, who was at Goldman Sachs (NYSE:), joined Mideast logistics and trucking expertise agency TruKKer as group chief monetary officer.
“Prior to now, folks obtained into funding banking as a result of it was among the many highest-paid jobs. Now they’re making an attempt to construct unicorns,” mentioned Abuinnab, referring to corporations which are value $1 billion or extra.
Dubai’s tech success tales have fuelled extra curiosity into the sector.
Amazon (NASDAQ:)’s acquisition of Center East on-line retailer Souq.com in 2017 for $580 million triggered extra offers within the sector, together with Uber (NYSE:)’s $3.1 billion acquisition of ride-hailing agency Careem in 2019.
However for bankers, the payout for such offers will be slim in contrast with these in different areas.
Saudi Telecom Co’s tech unit Arabian Web and Communications Companies Co mentioned it will pay $12 million in charges for its preliminary public providing, based on its prospectus in September.
The charges, shared by banks, attorneys and auditors, equate to about 1.3% of the deal worth, in contrast with 5% within the U.S. or Europe.
Saudi Aramco (SE:), whose providing raised a file $29.4 billion in 2019, paid high banks on the deal $3 million to $4 million every.
Dubai has not had a serious preliminary public providing since 2017, when Emaar Properties spun off its unit Emaar Improvement and listed the corporate on the native bourse.
That leaves folks like Keyper CEO Abuinnab, 44, looking for different retailers for his or her ambitions. He subsequent plans to increase the corporate’s operations into world cities, together with London.
“Actual property traders aren’t nicely serviced on this area. I wished to raise that have from my monetary background to property house owners to assist them make higher funding selections utilising actual time knowledge and analytics,” he mentioned.
($1 = 3.6726 UAE dirham)
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