Abu Dhabi: Al Mansoori, an Abu Dhabi based oilfield Services Company is planning for an Initial Public Offering (IPO) in the next two years to strengthen its position and have access to more financial resources, a top executive of the company told Gulf News on Wednesday.
“Within the next two years, there will be an opportunity to share our success with the people of the UAE. We are planning to go public to strengthen the company,” said Ebrahim Al Alawi, Deputy Chief Executive Officer of Al Mansoori Petroleum Services.
He did not, however, give a specific date but said they would debut on the Abu Dhabi Stock Exchange and that the details are being worked out.
The company, founded in 1977, operates in more than 20 countries in North Africa, Far East and South East Asia. It employs more than 2,000 people.
The company is financing their projects through bank loans and their own money at the moment.
“We are trying to keep bank loans to a minimum. We’ve seen what happened to other companies that have become overleveraged when revenue stream stops flowing and get into trouble. We don’t want to be in that situation.”
On acquisitions he said they are not actively pursuing it but would “definitely look” into it. “If the right opportunity comes up at the right time, we will study it and look at it. We will keep growing wherever our services are needed.”
Al Alawi said they are planning to grow by 10 to 15 per cent this year despite drop in oil prices. “We are experiencing double digit growth for the last five years due to the boom that was going in the area even though the price of oil has gone down. The growth is still there, we have not seen a slowdown, may be the rate of growth has slowed down but we are still growing.”
Oil prices have plunged by more than 50 per cent in the last year due to record shale production in North America and weakening global demand. From $115 in June last year, oil prices fell to less than $50 in January before recovering later. Brent, the international benchmark for crude oil was trading at $64.02 on Wednesday at around 4pm UAE time.
On the impact of low oil price, he said the number of rigs has reduced in some countries while it has increased in some countries like Oman.
“In countries like Iraq funds were diverted to take care of security situation leaving less money available for the oilfield development. The companies were short of cash so they cancelled a lot of projects. The number of rigs has increased in Oman.”
