JEDDAH, 5 July 2007 — The five-day initial public offering of the Saudi Printing & Packaging Company (SPPC) concluded yesterday drawing more than SR420 million in investment from over a million subscribers and registering an oversubscription of 354 percent.
“The final results of the IPO will be announced next week after collecting data from other participating banks,” said Eissa Al-Eissa, the CEO of Samba Financial Group, the IPO’s manager. “The SPPC IPO was successful by all standards,” he added.
The company offered 18 million shares worth SR396 million in the IPO, including 5.4 million for individual subscribers. Investors were allowed to buy a minimum of 10 shares and a maximum of 100,000 shares at the rate of SR22 per share.
“More than a million individual subscribers participated in the IPO pumping over SR420 million in investment,” the Samba chief said. The company offered 5.4 million shares worth SR118.8 million to individual subscribers.
If the number of individual subscribers crosses 540,000, Samba, being the manager of the IPO, would have the right to increase the allocation to nine million shares or 50 percent of the total with the permission of the Capital Market Authority.
SPPC is a subsidiary of media giant Saudi Research & Marketing Group (SRMG), publisher of Arab News, Asharq Al-Awsat, Eqtisadiah, Arriyadiah and other leading newspapers and magazines.
Prince Faisal bin Salman, chairman of SRMG, described the IPO as one of the major turning points of the printing company. “It will certainly contribute to strengthening and diversifying its base of shareholders and support its future trends,” he said.
SPPC is one of the leading printing companies in the region. It has made rapid strides in terms of providing quality service, making excellent financial performance and expanding its activities, the prince said.
Tarik Algain, the CEO of SPPC, said the IPO represented an important phase in the company’s history and development. “The IPO will take the company to new heights of progress and help achieve its objective of becoming an integrated printing group in the Arab region,” Algain said.
He expressed his confidence that the company would continue to make excellent achievements as did in the past as a result of its comprehensive vision and expansion plan.
Saudi Arabia is considered the largest printing market in the Gulf Cooperation Council accounting for 44 percent of the total Gulf market of SR6.7 billion ($1.7 billion). During the last three years the Saudi market achieved a growth rate of 8.3 percent.