UAE’s ADNOC prices gas business IPO near upper end of range

ABU DHABI, March 3 (Reuters) – State oil major Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) set the final price for its initial public offering on Friday, after attracting record demand for the company. The valuation is around $50 billion. It will be the largest listed company in Abu Dhabi.

ADNOC said in a statement that the share price of ADNOC Gas was set at AED 2.37 per share, close to the upper end of the price range of AED 2.25 to AED 2.43 per share.

ADNOC said the IPO proceeds were about $2.5 billion from more than $124 billion in orders. That surpassed demand for Saudi oil giant Aramco’s 2019 IPO, which raised $25.6 billion and remains the world’s largest.

The Middle East bucked the trend and raised about $21.9 billion in IPOs last year, according to Dealogic. That’s more than half of the broader EMEA region total.

ADNOC said last week that it would increase the stake it would offer investors to investors from 4 percent to 5 percent due to strong demand for the deal, Abu Dhabi’s largest IPO.

ADNOC Gas is expected to start trading on March 13.

Khaled Al Zaabi, ADNOC Group Chief Executive Officer, said the strong interest in the IPO underscored “the attractiveness of ADNOC’s world-class and low-carbon-intensity energy asset base” and Abu Dhabi’s attractiveness as a destination for global capital.

The group has raised billions of dollars through public companies such as ADNOC Drilling and Fertiglobe and the sale of stakes in its network of gas and oil pipelines. It also plans to float its logistics and services division.

($1 = 3.6727 United Arab Emirates dirhams)

Reporting by Yousef Saba in Dubai and Rachna Uppal in Abu Dhabi; Editing by Edmund Klamann and Sonali Paul

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