Kingdom to sell 5% stake in IPO

Saudi Arabia's Kingdom Holding, owned by billionaire investor Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, will sell a 5 % stake in an initial public offering this year, the stock market regulator said on Monday.

Only Saudis will be allowed to buy shares in Kingdom, which had $24 billion in assets at the end of 2006, including holdings in Time Warner Inc., Apple Computer Inc., Motorola Inc. and News Corporation Inc.

Kingdom will offer 315 million existing shares, the Capital Market Authority said, giving the company permission to start book building. It did not say when the IPO would start.

Prince Alwaleed, who holds around 95 % of Kingdom's shares, told Middle East Economic Digest last month the IPO would open before the end of the second quarter.

Prince Alwaleed is the world's 13th richest person, according to Forbes magazine, and Citigroup Inc.'s largest individual shareholder.

At 63 billion riyals ($16.80 billion) Kingdom's paid-up capital is more than 2.5 times that of Saudi Basic Industries Corp., the largest company on the Saudi stock market.

The biggest ever Gulf Arab IPO was in 2003 when the Saudi government sold a stake in Saudi Telecom Co. for $2.72 billion. Saudi Telecom is now Saudi Arabia's second-largest firm by market value.

Kingdom said this month it had made an average return on investments of 20 % over the last 16 years, outperforming both the MSCI and the Standard & Poor's global indices by more than 10 %.

Kingdom has appointed Samba Financial Group and Citigroup as financial advisers for the IPO.

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