Oil and gas exploration company Addis Holding, backed by Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund, on Sunday began marketing its initial public offering, eyeing a share price of between 12.50 riyals ($3.33) and 13.50 riyals.
A notice to investors on Sunday showed that Addis seeks to raise up to 4.57 billion riyals ($1.22 billion) from the sale of a 30 percent stake in the company through a share offering.
In November, Reuters quoted two informed sources that the planned initial public offering could raise more than $1 billion.
The book-building process for institutional investors ends on Sept. 14. The final price of the shares will be determined at the end of the book building period.
On August 28, Addis announced its planned offering on the Saudi Stock Exchange through the sale of existing and new shares.
The selling shareholders, namely the Public Investment Fund, Addis Investments Holding Limited, and Zamil Investment Group, will sell a total of 101 million and 615,626 of the existing shares in proportion to their shares.
Addis will also issue 237,103,128 new shares.
Sunday's notice indicated that a portion of the offering proceeds is scheduled to be distributed to Addis shareholders in proportion to the shares they sold.
The notice said the remainder of the proceeds would be used to pay off some of the company's debts and fund its growth plans.
($ 1 = 3.7508 riyals)
