Dubai: Healthcare and education start-up Amanat Holdings’ Initial Public Offering was ‘strongly oversubscribed’ on the sixth day of the subscription, its chairman told Gulf News, pointing to strong investor appetite despite the market volatility.

The company aims to raise Dh1.37 billion by selling 55 per cent of its share capital. It plans to deploy 95 per cent of its capital on acquisitions and partnership with existing or under development companies, and use 5 per cent of capital to establish new ventures.

“We are overwhelmed with the investor response so far. We are proud to announce that the IPO is already oversubscribed which was not the case of the any of the previous IPOs except for Emaar,” Faisal bin Juma Belhoul, chairman of Amanat told Gulf News. “The key message is that as of today we are oversubscribed and the books are already covered.”

Belhoul declined to give any specific details on subscription levels due to regulatory issues.

“Recent IPO’s didn’t have this level of demand. In our case, demand came in very early in the process, which is a very encouraging sign. We believe that the offering will be significantly over subscribed,” said Belhoul.

The company plans to sell 55 per cent of shares in two tranches, out of which 95 per cent is on offer for public, and the remaining 5 per cent will be allocated to Emirates Investment Authority, subject to their nod.

The Emirates Investment Authority is still reviewing the opportunity, and they are “very much keen” to subscribe to the tranche. The authority will reply on the last day of subscription.

Marka’s IPO was the first after a hiatus of five years in Dubai, followed by Emaar Malls Group. The Dubai Financial Market expects to have at least two IPOs before the end of the year, while Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange hopes to have 2-3 IPOs before 2014-end.

Acquisitions:

Amanat said there could be two acquisitions in health care and education sector, which would be announced in the first quarter of 2015. The company has a pipeline of opportunities that would be presented to the board.

“We will be in a position to make early announcements post the corporation of the company, which could be received positively by the company because of the quality of investments,” Belhoul said.

The company aims to acquire 6 companies in the next 12-24 months in the health care and education sector.

Health-care spending in the Gulf is expected to grow at an annual growth rate of 10.7 per cent until 2017, while higher education student enrolment figures are predicted to expand at a 5.2 per cent until 2020.