[2007-11-12]  Saudi Arabia to see $8b IPOs next year
Some 40 firms will sell shares to the public in Saudi Arabia in 2008, in offerings worth up to $8 billion, or twice this year's total, the investment banking arm of state-owned National Commercial Bank (NCB) said yesterday.

"We may see 30 to 40 companies," Hasan Al Jabri, head of investment at NCB Capital, told a conference in Riyadh. "I think liquidity in the market is quite strong ... The 40 companies who have announced that they would like to go for an IPO next year are talking about less than $8 billion."

Jabri said there had been about 25 initial public offerings in Saudi Arabia in 2007, which raised a total of around $4 billion. NCB Capital was mandated lead manager and underwriter for seven IPOs in 2007.

Jabri said he was including in next year's IPOs the $10-billion PetroRabigh refinery venture between Saudi Aramco and Japan's Sumitomo Chemicals and the start-up Inmaa Bank.

The Saudi stock market authority said this month PetroRabigh's IPO would run from January 5 to January 12 and would involve the sale of a 25 per cent stake in the company.

No announcement has been made regarding Inmaa Bank, although the government had said it could hold its IPO for 70 per cent of its capital this year.



Source: © Al Nisr Publishing LLC 2007.