Dubai aims to set up an alternative stock market for small-to-medium sized firms in a bid to create more exit options for the region's private equity sector, Nasser Saidi, the chief economist of Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) said.
"To private equity investors this increases the exit mechanisms and exit opportunities," Saidi told reporters on Tuesday.
An alternative or second-tier market allows smaller and mostly higher risk companies to float their shares by lowering the regulatory threshold in comparison to a main market.
Saidi said it was too early to say where the market would be established, under which regulation it would operate and whether it would span different countries in the Gulf.
"We are talking to a number of parties, gauging interest from companies. There is the issue of market infrastructure, the issue of regulation, we're addressing all of these, it is a work in progress," said Saidi, who also declined to give a timeframe for the initiative.
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