Mubadala to “wait for right time” for Cepsa IPO

25 October 2018
Abu Dhabi’s investment vehicle recently shelved plans to go ahead with the exercise

Mubadala would attempt to stock list Spanish Energy firm Cepsa again when the “markets are attractive”, the Abu Dhabi sovereign investment firm’s CEO Khaldoon Al Mubarak told the Future Investment Initiative (FII) in Riyadh.

In August, Mubadala was reported to be considering an initial public offering (IPO) of Cepsa, which it fully owns, in the Spanish stock markets of Madrid, Barcelona, Bilbao and Valencia.

Mubadala later, in mid-October, announced it was not going ahead with the Cepsa IPO plan owing to “adverse market conditions.”

Explaining why Mubadala shelved the Cepsa share sale, Mubarak said at the FII: “We have done many IPOs domestically, but this one was going to be our first international IPO, so it was a big deal for us. The company is a very successful business and a profitable company, and we thought it was the right time for some monetisation. We went through the process. Our intention was to IPO actually two weeks ago.

“In September the interest was strong, the markets were attractive. By the time we were about to hit market, the situation became problematic, the markets became jittery. There were about eight IPOs that were postponed, including ours, around that point in time. Therefore we felt it was probably not the best time, so we pulled it back.”

Regarding if and when Mubadala would make another attempt to stock list Cepsa, Mubarak said, “We will wait for the right time, it’s a valuation play for us. The business is great so we will retain that. When we see the markets attractive [again], we will go back to the market.”

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