Saudi media giant MBC Group has set its final initial public offering (IPO) price at $6.7 (SAR 25) per share, drawing $14.5 billion (SAR 54.5 billion) in investor orders for the share sale.
The IPO price — the top of a marketed range — puts the broadcaster at a valuation of $2.2 billion.
MBC Group is planning to raise as much as $222 million (SAR 831 million) from selling a 10% stake via the IPO, a statement showed Tuesday.
The investor demand has led to subscription coverage of approximately 66x the total shares offered, the statement said.
Retail buyers can bid for the IPO between December 14 and 18, with the trading date yet to be determined but likely in 2024, according to the deal terms seen by Bloomberg.
MBC plans to use the IPO proceeds to repay debt, boost its financial flexibility, and invest in new content for Shahid amongst other initiatives.
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HSBC Holdings Plc, JPMorgan Chase & Co., and SNB Capital act as financial advisors, bookrunners, and underwriters for the IPO, while GIB Capital is a financial advisor to the major shareholders.
Established in 1991, MBC was the first privately owned pan-Arab satellite TV group before the Saudi government took a 60% stake. Founder and chairman Waleed Al Ibrahim—one of Saudi Arabia’s richest businessmen—owns the remaining stake. MBC transferred its headquarters to Dubai in the UAE in 2002 and then to Saudi Arabia’s capital, Riyadh.
MBC owns 13 free-to-air TV channels and a video-streaming service, Shahid, which is the biggest such platform in the Middle East and North Africa in terms of subscribers, according to its prospectus.
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The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region saw a decline in IPOs in the third quarter of the year, with only six listed companies raising a combined total of $523 million, according to EY’s MENA IPO Eye Q3 2023 report.
Saudi Arabia has so far dominated the region’s IPO activity this year, with five of the six IPOs coming from the country during the quarter. Saudi IPOs raised $330 million (SAR 1.2 billion) out of the total funds raised by the IPOs listed across MENA during the period.
Over the past two years, high oil prices have fueled a listing boom, and investors have been piling into the offerings that often perform well.
