The Dubai Financial Market General Index closed at 5,140.78 points on Monday, up 77.82 points, or 1.54 per cent over yesterday’s close of 5,062.97 points.

The Abu Dhabi Exchange (ADX) index too trended higher, closing at 5,128.57 points, up 0.9 per cent or 45.85 points today.

The Dubai index yesterday closed above 5,000 points for the first time since early June thanks to shares of real estate developer Emaar Properties, which surged 8.8 per cent on Sunday to close at Dh11.15, its highest since March 2008.

This morning, investors further voted with their wallet, pushing Emaar to a fresh six-year-high of Dh12, a day after the company said that it would launch an IPO for its malls unit next month in what will be the largest Dubai IPO in recent years.

Emaar said it plans to sell at least 15 per cent of the malls and retail unit on the DFM and a spokesperson told Reuters that the listing of shares is expected in October.

The DFM index has continued its strong growth and broke psychologically significant barrier of 5,000 for the first time in almost six years on April 22, closing at 5,018.98 on that day.

The index rose further in May as the MSCI upgrade took effect, but the lean summer months saw it drop down to an intra-day low of 3,899.99 on June 30, 2014, when the index finally closed at 3,942.82.

Since then, however, in two months, the DFM index has surged more than 30 per cent, with real estate, construction and finance stocks mostly in focus. The ADX is up more than 12 per cent in the same period.

Property major Emaar Properties, which surged 8.8 per cent yesterday, rallied another 7 per cent this morning and traded at Dh12 a share before settling down and cosing Dh11.65, up 4.5 per cent for the day.

The Dubai-based real estate developer Emaar yesterday announced its intention to proceed with the sale of existing shares in Emaar Malls Group (EMG) via an initial public offering (IPO) on the Dubai Financial Market (DFM).

In the statement to the Dubai bourse, the property developer noted that it would pay a dividend of approximately Dh9bn ($2.45bn) to its shareholders thanks to the forthcoming IPO.

“The intention to generate proceeds for Emaar Properties by listing Emaar Malls Group shares on DFM will continue the established trend of returning funds from the group to shareholders,” Mohamed Alabbar, Chairman of Emaar Properties, said in the statement.

On Monday, among other gainers were Gulfa (up over 10 per cent to Dh2.49 on thin trading), Dubai Islamic Bank (up 2.53 per cent to Dh8.1), the Dubai stock market’s own listing, DFM (up 4 per cent to Dh3.6), and Dubai Investments (up 1.84 per cent to Dh3.87).