More and more GCC companies are relying on legal experts as it prepares for public listing. This phenomena was confirmed by the MENA head of law firm DLA Piper with the paper Arabian Business.
Since the 2008-09 debt crisis, there has been a steady decline of public listings, many of which are indefinitely postponed or cancelled altogether as new companies emerge from the market.
GCC stock exchanges declared only five companies having been listed in the first half of the year. For 2013, these listed companies raised about USD385 million according to leading audit firm PricewaterhouseCoopers or PwC.
Many analysts have recommended that the Middle East market has become more attractive for businesses who have postponed their IPOs together with new market conditions.
According to DLA Piper Middle East partner Abdul Aziz Abdullah Al Yaqout, "We're doing a lot of capita markets work in specific countries, predominantly in Kuwait where there's a lot of activity following the (new) capital markets authority law."
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