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Moelis Wins Role on Third Dubai Listing With Empower Mandate

Moelis Wins Role on Third Dubai Listing With Empower Mandate

Emirates Central Cooling Systems Corp. picked Moelis & Co. to work on its initial public offering that’s planned for later this year, according to people familiar with the matter.

Known as Empower, the company has been working with Moelis on preparing a possible listing on the domestic stock exchange, the people said, asking not be named because the information is private. The next step will be to appoint book-runners for the share sale, they said.

A representative for Moelis declined to comment. A spokesperson for Empower’s 70% owner Dubai Electricity & Water Authority didn’t respond to requests for comment.

For Moelis, the Empower mandate is the third government-linked IPO win in Dubai this year. The New York-bank is already working on the IPO of toll-road operator Salik, Bloomberg previously reported, and was financial adviser to Dewa’s recently-completed $6 billion listing on the main Dubai stock exchange earlier this month.

Dubai’s IPO plans are part of an attempt to revive its lackluster domestic stock market and to catch up with regional rivals Abu Dhabi and Riyadh, which have both seen a flurry of capital markets activity in recent years. 

The chief executive of Dewa said Monday that it aims to list the district cooling provider by the end of the year. The exact timing and size of any sale of Empower are “under study,” Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer said in a Bloomberg Television interview.   

Established almost two decades ago, Empower is a venture between Dewa and Tecom, part of state-owned Dubai Holding. The company says it’s the world’s largest district cooling services provider, serving more than 140,000 corporate and individual consumers and controlling most of Dubai’s district cooling sector.

District cooling is the preferred method in the Gulf region to combat temperatures that often soar above 110 degrees Fahrenheit (43 degrees Celsius) during the summer. Cooling plants generate chilled water, which is then sent through pipes to cool the air of everything from skyscrapers and villas to Dubai’s metro line and theme parks.

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