JEDDAH, 13 November 2006 — The Saudi stock market rebounded yesterday after falling over 20 percent for the last few days. The Tadawul All-Share Index (TASI) jumped 643.36 points or over 8 percent to close at 8,662.43 after plunging below the 8,000 mark on Saturday. The index closed on Saturday at 8,019.07 points.

Out of 84 symbols traded, shares of 82 companies went up while shares of two companies — the Samba Financial Group in the Banking sector and the Al-Baha Investment & Development Co. in the Services sector — dropped yesterday.

Shares in the Saudi International Petrochemical Company (Sipchem), which started trading on Tadawul on Saturday, regained 9.94 percent to SR49.75 after falling 17.73 percent below their initial public offering (IPO) price of SR55 on debut. Most of the shares made hefty gains yesterday except few banks which rose in the range of 2.29 percent to 9.88 percent.

The stock market turnover also surged to SR14.73 billion compared to a meager SR6 billion average for the last few days. Before the stock market downward march started, the value of traded shares was averaged SR25 billion daily.

However, the IPO of the Al-Babtain Power & Telecommunication Company, which opened on Nov. 4, set to close today.

According to information made available by HSBC Saudi Arabia Limited, the financial adviser and lead manager for the IPO, the ten-day Al-Babtain IPO is covered 227 percent. At the end of Saturday, more than 1.693 million subscribers opted for Al-Babtain shares. A total of SR735,282,800 million has been collected within the eight days of the IPO.

The issued share capital of Al-Babtain is SR270 million ($72 million) consisting of 27 million shares. The IPO comprises 8.1 million shares — representing 30 percent of its share capital. The heavyweight Industrial index closed at 1,583.80 points or 9.88 percent higher at 17,618.35, while the Banking index edged up 1,245.28 points or 5.39 percent to 24,354.22 yesterday.

Shares of Al-Rajhi Bank, Bank Albilad and Bank AlJazira edged higher by over 9 percent yesterday. Banque Saudi Fransi shares rose slightly by 2.29 percent to SR123.

Saudi Basic Industries Corp. (SABIC) shares soared 9.95 percent yesterday to close at SR113.25.