Emaar India JV eyes USD 358 m IPO by Dec

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The Indian joint venture of Dubai's Emaar Properties plans to launch an IPO by December to raise up to Rs 1600 crore (USD 358 million), less than half the size announced earlier, two sources with direct knowledge said.

Emaar MGF, the builder of New Delhi's Commonwealth Games village that has come under criticism for shoddy construction, said in a statement it had filed papers on Thursday with the capital markets regulator for the IPO.

"The issue size has been lowered keeping in view the existing fund requirements," a company spokeswoman said in the statement, but gave no details of the size or when the sale would happen.

"The company has been able to reduce its debt significantly buoyed by healthy sales from recent project launches and the improved real estate market."

The company had said in April it would launch a USD 770 million IPO in 90 days.

It did not happen and in August, sources had said that Emaar MGF was planning to cut the share offering size by half to about Rs 2000 crore.

On Friday, the sources, who are involved in the sale process, said the issue size was being lowered to ensure good response from the retail investors.

Emaar MGF had been the first major casualty of a stock market slump in early 2008 that forced it to abandon its over USD 1.5 billion IPO in February that year.

In 2006/07, more than a dozen developers hit the market with equity issues, but most stocks trade near or below their offer price. Only three real estate IPOs have hit the market this year despite a slew of new share offerings in recent months.

New Delhi-based Emaar MGF is among several real estate companies that are planning to raise funds through IPOs in a booming stock market that hit a 33-month on Friday, driven by robust economic growth and surging foreign inflows.

Kotak Mahindra, RBS, Deutsche Bank, UBS, HSBC and ICICI Bank are the arrangers to the Emaar MGF offer.