P&O to return to LSE with £6-bn valuation

LONDON: British ports firm P&O is set to return to the London stock market less than a year after being bought by an arm of the Dubai government, valuing P&O as high as £6bn ($11bn), the Sunday Times reported.

Dubai Ports World (DPW), the new owner of Britain’s biggest ports and ferries operator, would sell a 20% stake and raise more than £1bn. The aim is to list the shares on both the London Stock Exchange and on the Gulf state’s fledgling Dubai International Financial Centre, the paper said.

The listing would comprise P&O’s 29 ports, among them, Tilbury in south-east England and Antwerp in Belgium and a handful of other ports that were already in DPW’s ownership.

Deutsche Bank and Merrill Lynch have been appointed to coordinate the share offering, which may take place as early as November, it added. P&O and DPW were not immediately available for comment.