Alef Education shares slump in first day of trading on ADX
Shares in the edtech platform closed 13% lower than the offer price of 1.35 dirhams despite strong demand for the stock when the IPO was rolled out
The Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange's ADX logo is seen on a smartphone. (Photo: Getty Images)
Abu Dhabi edtech platform Alef Education struggled on its first day of trading on the ADX, in a rare down day for an IPO on a Gulf exchange.
The shares closed 13% lower than the offer price of 1.35 dirhams on Wednesday despite strong demand for the stock when the IPO was rolled out. Investors poured in over $20 billion worth of orders, pricing Alef at the top of the range and raising 1.89 billion dirhams ($515 million) for the company.
But Abu Dhabi’s first initial share sale of 2024 marks the worst debut since 2021. The 14 companies that had gone public since the start of 2021 saw their shares rise by about 31% on average in the first session, according to Bloomberg data.
“Opening up below IPO price reflects negatively on the valuation it was sold at and the risk appetite of investors and liquidity of the market at that point,” Mohammed Ali Yasin, founder and chief executive officer of Oracle Financial Consultancy and Investments, told the news agency.