L'IMAD Holding Company PJSC has notified AD Ports Group of its intention to launch a voluntary conditional cash offer for all shares in the company it does not already own, through its subsidiary Abu Dhabi Developmental Holding Company PJSC, known as ADQ.
ADQ currently holds 75.42 percent of AD Ports Group. The proposed offer price is AED6.25 per share, valuing the company at more than AED31.2 billion, or about $8.6 billion.
Why the price matters
The AED6.25 offer represents a 23 percent premium to AD Ports Group's last closing share price of AED5.10 on August 14, 2026. It is a 25 percent premium to the one-month volume-weighted average price of AED5.02, and a 31 percent premium to the three-month volume-weighted average of AED4.76.
Measured against AD Ports Group's original listing price of AED3.20 per share on February 8, 2022, when it debuted on the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange and raised AED4 billion through a primary issuance, the offer represents a 95 percent premium.
What happens next
AD Ports Group will put the matter before its board of directors and follow the procedures set out in Decision No. 18/R.M of 2017 of the Capital Market Authority. The company is also required to issue an offeree circular to shareholders explaining the terms of the offer.
The transaction remains conditional on a range of approvals, including governmental, corporate, regulatory and statutory sign-offs, as well as clearance from the capital-market authority. It also needs antitrust and foreign-direct-investment approvals from authorities both inside and outside the UAE. ADQ must still complete due diligence on AD Ports Group before the deal can proceed.
The offer is further conditional on AD Ports Group's board recommendation not being withdrawn or changed, and on no material adverse effect occurring in the meantime. As of the announcement, ADQ had not secured irrevocable commitments from AD Ports Group shareholders to accept the offer.
L'IMAD said ADQ has sufficient financial resources available to pay the cash consideration in full.
The L'IMAD-ADQ link
The offer comes against the backdrop of a broader restructuring of Abu Dhabi's state holding structure. On January 30, 2026, the Supreme Council for Financial and Economic Affairs issued a resolution to consolidate the assets and investments of L'IMAD and ADQ under L'IMAD, bringing the two entities more closely together ahead of this move on AD Ports Group's minority shareholders.
AD Ports Group has been listed on the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange since February 2022. For minority shareholders in the company, the offer now sets a clear cash benchmark against which to weigh continued ownership versus an exit at a substantial premium to recent trading levels.
Reported by Economy Middle East