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Hookah maker Air bets on shisha demand as it plans to brave markets with May IPO

Shareholders will vote on the merger between Cantor Equity Partners III and Air on Tuesday,12 May
by enterpriseam adminUAE Edition
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Air is the first UAE company to make headway on IPO plans since the war began: Shares of Dubai-based Advanced Inhalation Rituals (Air) could hit Nasdaq — the world’s second-largest bourse by market cap — as early as next month under the ticker AIIR, according to a statement. The flavored hookah tobacco-maker filed its second F-4 in March and is aiming to close the IPO in early May at a USD 1.75 bn valuation. The listing remains in line with the 1H 2026 timeline the company flagged late last year.

The SPAC of it all: Air plans to go public via a merger with Cantor Equity Partners III, a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC). While the early 2020s blank check craze has eased, SPACs remain somewhat of a backdoor for mid-market foreign firms to access deep US liquidity when local appetite for cyclical sectors is dampened by regional volatility — as is the case today.

SOUND SMART- An F-4 is the SEC filing a foreign company submits when it’s IPO-ing in the US via a merger, most commonly by using SPAC. It’s essentially the transaction document that registers the new shares and lays out the full details of the combination (think audited financials, debt, projections, supply chain disruptions, and geopolitical exposure).

What’s next? Shareholders will vote on the merger between Cantor Equity Partners III and Air on Tuesday, 12 May to form the new public entity Air Global, clearing the path for a Nasdaq listing.

Brazier is pitching the business as a war-proof play: “At times of stress, in the same way that maybe people drink a little more Scotch, they might enjoy a few more shishas as well,” CEO Stuart Brazier told AGBI. He added that he remains bullish on 2026, noting that the group’s expansion into the US, Europe, and Saudi Arabia is insulating it from regional volatility.

Not without friction: Footnotes in the filing reveal that the closure of the Strait of Hormuz forced Air to reroute shipments via overland corridors and Jeddah port, driving up logistics costs.

By the numbers: Air is active in over 100 countries and claims more than 60% of the US market. It operates eight production facilities across the UAE and the EU, and with third-party partners. Its flagship brand, Al Fakher, had 14 mn consumers worldwide as of 2024. Air’s top line grew 6% to USD 400 mn in 2025, with its bottom line up 38% to USD 47 mn, and its EBITDA up 7% to USD 139 mn.

Just two years ago, Air had been eyeing both Dubai and Abu Dhabi as potential listing venues, through which London-based private equity firm Kingsway Capital (Air’s majority owner) was set to offload its holding through a dual-track process. The PE firm took Air private in 2020, delisting it from the Amman Stock Exchange in a transaction that valued the company at USD 1.4 bn (debt included).

Background

The UAE had a busy pipeline of IPOs for the year, but has yet to see any as plans were pushed to 2H 2026 amid market volatility and as the US-Iran war continued to weigh on sentiment. In the pipeline:

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