UAE’s ADNOC to list minority stakes in service businesses

The Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. (ADNOC) plans to float minority stakes in some of its service businesses on local equity markets as it seeks to broaden its investor base and raise capital, it said in a statement on Monday.

The initial public offerings (IPOs) will support the growth and expansion of the private sector and capital markets in the United Arab Emirates, group CEO Sultan Al Jaber said, adding that ADNOC will continue to be a majority shareholder in any businesses that are listed.

GCC oil exporters have ramped up economic diversification and privatization efforts in recent years, after oil prices tumbled in mid-2014.

State-owned Saudi Aramco is expected to float a 5 percent stake next year, as part of Saudi Arabia’s fiscal reform plans.

Unlike Aramco’s listing of a stake in the whole company, however, an IPO of ADNOC at the group holding level is not on the table, Al Jaber said.

“ADNOC will remain fully owned by the Government of Abu Dhabi,” he said.

The first potential IPO of the Abu Dhabi oil major’s services business will be announced within the next few months, company executives told The National newspaper in an interview.

ADNOC is also eyeing partnerships with some of the world’s largest institutions, and has already begun talks about the new ventures, Al Jaber said.

The new partnerships will be across the company’s entire value chain, including upstream, midstream, and refinery and petrochemical businesses.

ADNOC has developed a set of criteria by which it will select new partners, including the ability of partners to secure better access to fast-growing target markets for ADNOC’s products, their willingness to contribute technical expertise and co-develop new technologies, and the potential to co-invest strategically across different parts of a more integrated ADNOC value chain.

The Abu Dhabi-based company will also look to broaden both the range and type of partners it works with, to include, for example, specialist infrastructure and energy investors, long term global investment institutions and other energy, and services and petrochemical players, the statement said.