VOL. XL

No. 45

10-November-1997

BAHRAIN

Arig IPO A Success

The ground-breaking Initial Public Offering (IPO) by Bahrain-based Arab Insurance Group(Arig) was executed on 5 November at an offer price of $1.60 per share, equivalent to justunder 10 times 1996 earnings. The global coordinators of the IPO, National Bank of Kuwait(NBK) and National Commercial Bank (NCB) of Saudi Arabia, raised $290.9mn in asimultaneous offering of 181.8mn ordinary shares, or 50.5% of the share capital of theinsurer....