Clarifies fourth paragraph it was an Emaar unit

Davide and Yousef Barbuscia

DUBAI (Reuters). -Gulf stock exchanges will likely have another year of initial public offerings in 2022. This could surpass this year’s record crop, according to a Bank of America executive.

Dubai announced its intention to list 10 state-owned enterprises after a year of three big IPOs, one each on Abu Dhabi’s ADX market and Saudi Arabia’s Tadawul.

We expect ADX, Tadawul and other financial markets to be busy. Christian Cabanne is the Bank of America’s Head of Equity Capital Markets for Central, Eastern Europe and Middle East. This will make 2022 a significant difference.

Dubai announced plans in an attempt to aid the region’s growing capital market competition.

Cabanne said the success of Dubai’s IPOs will depend on factors such whether the size of the offers are digestible for the market, with price ranges that are deemed appealing to both international and local investors.

Cabanne indicated that the region still has plenty of capital.

He stated that Abu Dhabi and Dubai have a comparable investor base. However, he added that he expected to see discipline so similar issues are not being filed at the same time.

Last week, the UAE announced that it would shift to Saturday-Sunday weekends in 2019. This is an important step to better align the UAE and global markets. It will also make it more convenient for foreign investors to trade local securities.

There is a possibility that new products will be introduced in regional equity capital market markets, like a UAE debut exchangeable bond or a Saudi Arabian secondary marketed equity offer.