Saudi Arabia-based Al-Tayyar Travel Group has cancelled an initial public offering on February 22-28 after a book-building process failed to attract enough demand, the bourse regulator said on Saturday. Tayyar, which organises holiday packages and owns a corporate car rental service, said its IPO had been delayed and it would relaunch it within one to two months.
Bourse regulator Capital Market Authority said it had approved Tayyar's request to stop the initial public offering of its shares after institutional investors offered less than what the company was seeking to raise. Tayyar was hoping to raise 1.2 billion riyals ($320 million) from the sale of 24 million shares, or 30 percent of its capital.
"The book-building process by institutions should have covered 100 percent of the offered shares in order to allow 50 percent of the offered shares to be sold to retail investors," Tayyar Chief Executive Nasser al-Tayyar told Reuters.
"We covered only 67 percent of the IPO because institutional investors did not have enough time to examine our financial statements amid the spring holiday break. We will relaunch the IPO within one to two months," he added. The Saudi spring school break started on February 11 and ended on February 19.
Tayyar net profit was 279.3 million riyals in 2008 on sales of 2.77 billion riyals, up from 174.4 million riyals on sales of 2.18 billion riyals in 2007. In the first half of 2009, the company made a net profit of 190.6 million riyals, up 79.8 percent from the same period in 2008.
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