Jassim M. Al-Bahar, Chairman and Managing Director of International Financial Advisors (IFA), announced the closure of IFA Hotels & Resorts’ offering of 117 million shares, which represent 45% of the company’s 260 million overall shares, generating KD152 million. IFA achieved a profit of KD100 million from the offering and will enter this profit in the balance sheet for 2005.
IFA Hotels & Resorts will be traded on the Kuwait Stock Exchange on January 3rd, 2006 and will apply for listing on the Dubai Financial Market in the near future. Furthermore, IFA has recently acquired Moribo Leisure Limited of South Africa, a listed company in JSE, and will change its name to IFA Hotels & Resorts Limited in the first quarter of 2006.
Al-Bahar said that “The listing of IFA Hotels & Resorts was a result of IFA’s success and achievements in the hospitality sector and based on IFA’s strategy to have separate operations and to launch specialised companies. Therefore, the time is right for IFA Hotels & Resorts to become a separate company with an independent and specialised management that will help in achieving the company’s goals in a record time and contribute to higher returns that will reflect positively on IFA.”
IFA Hotels & Resorts is widely recognised as one of the world’s leading international companies engaged in the development of premier integrated and mixed-use hotel and tourism resort projects throughout Europe, the Middle East, the Indian Ocean region and Africa, with market capitalization of US$ 1 billion. IFA Hotels & Resorts’ projects are either operating or under construction in Dubai, Lebanon, South Africa, Zanzibar, Kenya and Portugal.
Al-Bahar concluded by stating that “The success that was achieved in 2005 is a result of the implementation of the strategies of the company and am confident of the future for IFA and its consortium at the local, regional and international level.”
