Nawras Muscat bourse debut put off to Monday

Oman telecommunications company Nawras announced that following the successful completion of its initial public offering (IPO), at the request of the Capital Markets Authority (CMA), the first day of trading for Nawras shares has been brought forward to Monday, November 1. The shares will trade under the ticker symbol nwrs on the Muscat Securities Market (MSM).

The IPO involved the sale of 40 per cent of the share capital of Nawras and raised a total of RO182m for the selling shareholders, which include TDC-Qtel Mena Investcom, which is controlled by Qtel, and a number of Omani pension funds, according to a report in Oman Daily Observer.

Based on the IPO offer price, the initial market capitalisation of Nawras is RO456m ($1.18bn).
Commenting on the announcement of the price range, Shaikh Salim bin Mustahil al Maashani, said: "We're very proud to have completed the biggest IPO in Oman since 2005. As of this morning, we are a top 5 Omani company by market capitalisation, an enormous achievement in only five years since the launching services in 2005. We warmly welcome our new investors to the Nawras family."

Ross Cormack, Chief Executive Officer of Nawras, added: "The success of our IPO underlines the fact that the investment community shares our enthusiasm for the Nawras story and for the company's future. We look forward to working to fulfil our promise to our shareholders of value creation by continuing to change the telecommunications landscape in Oman and offering pleasingly different services.

Retail buyers took up only 38.5 per cent of the initial public offering though it had reserved as much as 70 per cent of the offer to retail investors, with the rest earmarked for institutional investors. Earlier in October, Nawras extended the IPO period by a week due to tepid retail buy-in.
Nawras raised RO182m ($472.6m) after the offer priced at the bottom of its range at 702 baisas per share.

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