JEDDAH, 2 October 2006 — The Capital Market Authority (CMA) announced yesterday that the listing and start of trading of shares belonging to the Emaar Economic City on the Tadawul Stock Market would begin on Oct. 7, 2006 under the services sector with the code 4220.
The fluctuation percentage will be open during the first day of trading only and the EEC share will be added to the index once its price is stable. The Tadawul management announced that trading in EEC shares would be done from between 12:30 pm until 4 pm in the period between Oct. 7 to 11. Trading hours for the other listed companies during Ramadan will remain as previously announced. Market observers expect heavy trading of the company’s shares thus multiplying its price value at closing. A black market for selling the shares — reaching SR150 per share — has already been noticed in several cities last week as reports surfaced of the close announcement of the trading date. Many observers also expect that the heavy trading will pressure the banks’ systems and might cause over crowding and chaos.
The CMA’s announcement comes a day after the Ministry of Commerce and Industry has announced on Saturday that it has issued its decision of approving the announcement of establishing Emaar Economic City, thus cutting short the period of speculations in the black market. The ministry announced that EEC is a public shareholding company, with a capital of SR8.5 billion comprised of 850 million shares valued at SR10 each. The founders, a consortium of Dubai-based global real estate major Emaar Properties and a number of Saudi investors, subscribed 70 percent of the shares while the remaining 30 percent were floated in an IPO. Open only for Saudi nationals, the IPO was for 255 million shares. Over 10 million Saudis — about half of the Kingdom’s population — subscribed to the IPO. The IPO was oversubscribed by 2.82 times and received 2.8 million applications with the total amount subscribed at SR7.18 billion.