RIYADH, 8 August 2006 — Red Sea Housing Services (RSHS), a major Saudi housing company that provides total solutions in housing services, is offering its shares for public offering next week. The company, which has established an impressive reputation in the Middle East and Asia, is one of the companies of Al-Dabbagh Group. Nine million of its total 30 million shares will be offered for public offering on Aug. 12.

The offering will be supervised by Swicorp Financial Advisory and managed by the Saudi Hollandi Bank (SHB). Some 1,350 branches of various banks in the Kingdom will provide the necessary applications for buying shares as per the law of the Saudi Capital Market (SCM). According to the new law stated by SCM several months ago, priority will be given to Saudi nationals in the initial public offering. Private companies as well as foreign nationals will be exempted from buying shares in the initial phase that will last for ten days. Shares will later be traded in the Saudi stock market.

As per the law, the minimum amount of shares allowed to be bought is 10 and the maximum is 25,000.It shares will be sold at SR58 per share in the initial public offering.

According to Majed Al-Kasabi, chairman of RSHS, the company achieved revenues worth SR422 million last year by the end of March 31. The company’s income last year increased by 55 percent to SR97.9 million. He said the company has three main factories in the industrial city of Jubail in Saudi Arabia, Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, as well as Accra in Ghana.

“We also have many clients and representatives in several countries worldwide. This enables us to achieve hundreds of projects in 40 countries, round the clock,” he added.

Board members of RSHS had earlier arranged several meetings with businessmen, officials, and investment officials of several banks in the Kingdom last week to explain their financial situation and the company’s budget in the past three years.

Asked about the company’s activities, Al-Kasabi said that the company targets its clients were mainly in four main areas: oil and gas platforms as well as oil refinery and petrochemical plants, the mining sector, the construction sector, and multi purpose companies.

Several companies in these sectors seek the company’s total solution services in constructing housing services in a short period of time even if they were located in remote areas.

“These housing services are either built on a temporary basis or permanent basis,” he said. The services include the construction of a housing units, offices, electrical power generators, as well as water treatment plants.

Don Sumner, executive manager, said that due to the large demand in the market, the company’s main factory in Jubail was working double at an average of 20 hours per day nonstop. He said that the income of the company increased last year due to the increase in revenues.

He also said that by opening a new factory in Ghana, the company was in a better position to negotiate the prices of raw materials. “It increased our production capacity and has enabled us to acquire raw materials at better prices,” he emphasized.