Damac shareholders to vote on October 20 on Sajwani's bid to take company private

Dubai-based property developer Damac's shareholders will meet on October 20 to vote on the founder's bid to take the company private.

Hussein Sajwani relaunched his bid last week to take Damac Properties private through Maple Invest, a British Virgin Islands company he owns, after securing regulatory approval to buy shares in the developer.

Maple Invest will continue to acquire publicly traded shares in Damac, the company said in a statement at that time to the Dubai Financial Market, where its shares are traded. Maple Invest said in a June 9 statement it plans to own a minimum of 90 per cent and up to 100 per cent of Damac.

Once it acquires more than 90 per cent of the shares, the company can "submit an application to the authority for approval to submit a mandatory offer to enforce the minority shareholders of the company to sell/swap all the shares held by them in favour of the acquirer", Damac said in a statement to DFM on Monday.

Damac, known for its luxurious branded real estate projects with fashion houses and for building the Middle East's only Trump-branded golf course, has booked successive quarterly losses. However, the company narrowed those in the second quarter this year as it was boosted by a recovery in the UAE's property sector.

The developer reported a loss of Dh101 million ($27.5m) in the second quarter, compared to Dh280m loss in the same period in 2020. Revenue fell to Dh735.75m compared to Dh1.14 billion a year earlier.

The intention to take Damac private was revealed on June 9, when Mr Sajwani, who owns 72 per cent of the Dubai company, said he would buy the remaining shares for a price of Dh1.30 each, amounting to $595m.

He resigned from the board as chairman to avoid a conflict of interest.

Damac appointed vice chairman Farooq Arjomand as his replacement on June 15, while Ali Binjab was appointed as vice chairman of the company.