Rasan Information Technology Co and its shareholders are looking to raise as much as 841mn riyals ($224mn) in one of the first initial public offerings by a fintech firm in Saudi Arabia.The price range was set at 35 riyals to 37 riyals per share, according to a statement on Sunday. Rasan is selling 5.3mn new shares in the Riyadh IPO, while its shareholders are offering 17.4mn shares. Bookbuilding for institutional investors will run until May 16.Rasan is the fourth company to launch an IPO in Saudi Arabia in recent weeks. The kingdom’s stock exchange expects the burst of activity to continue, with more than 10 companies waiting in the wings, its chief executive officer said on Thursday.The offerings have been well received by investors, showing continued appetite for share sales in what’s been a busy IPO market over the past few years. Hospital group Dr Soliman Abdul Kader Fakeeh Hospital’s offering — shaping up to be the kingdom’s biggest IPO of 2024 — was sold out in less than an hour. Water treatment firm Miahona’s offer was covered 170 times by institutional investors.Flour milling company Modern Mills Co, which began trading in March, was also hugely oversubscribed and is up more than 11% since listing in Riyadh.The kingdom’s technology sector, however, hasn’t seen too many listings. Food delivery firm Jahez’s heavily oversubscribed offering in late 2021 was an exception.Apart from Rasan, buy-now-pay-later company Tabby and online cosmetics retailer Nice One are the technology firms eyeing IPOs, Bloomberg News has reported. Like some of its Gulf peers, Saudi Arabia is trying to diversify its stock exchange beyond banks and industrial companies that have typically dominated it.Founded in 2016, Rasan is the kingdom’s largest insurance aggregator, operating platforms such as Tameeni and Treza. It had revenues of 256mn riyals in 2023 and income of 46mn riyals.Saudi Fransi Capital and Morgan Stanley are acting as joint financial advisers, bookrunners and underwriters for the IPO.
May 12, 2024 | 07:44 PM