DUBAI, 15 November 2007 — Saudi Arabian travel group Al-Tayyar plans to raise about SR550 million ($146.7 million) in an initial public offering next year partly to finance acquisitions, the company’s president said yesterday.
The sale of a 30 percent stake in the firm would take place in the first quarter, Nasser Al-Tayyar told reporters at the Dubai Air Show.
The company would use about SR150 million of the funds raised in the offering to pay for acquisitions in Saudi Arabia, Australia and Lebanon, Tayyar told Reuters.
“We are negotiating with a few companies in Australia to buy travel agencies, “ he said, declining to be more specific.
Al-Tayyar would also use funds to expand its travel agency business, including tapping into Saudi Arabia’s religious tourism market.
“We want to be a larger company in the travel market,” Tayyar said.
“We want to extend operations into Malaysia and the US, where we provide travel agency services for Hajj and Umrah,” he said.
Some 40 firms will sell shares to the public in Saudi Arabia in 2008, in offerings worth up to $8 billion, or twice this year’s total, the investment banking unit of state-owned National Commercial Bank said on Sunday.
