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Oman Voltamp Energy surges on listing debut

DUBAI - Retail buying drove shares of Voltamp Energy as high as 1.53 rials ($3.97) yesterday on their first day of trading on Oman's bourse, nearly three times more than their issue price of 0.54 rials.

Voltamp, a unit of Al Anwar Holdings that makes power transformers and switching gear, closed its $35 million initial public offering last week more than 24 times oversubscribed.

It was the first IPO in Oman this year.

Shares closed at 1.50 rials, having opened at 1.25 rials.

"For the first three days of trading there will be no price limits. After that it will come down a bit," said Ajeev Gopinathan at Gulf Investment Services.

The company's valuation is on the "high-side" with Gulf Investment expecting the stock to eventually be valued at about 0.835 baisas, Gopinathan said.

"The company has forcasted a net profit of 2.402 million rials for this year," Gopinathan said. "On that basis, earnings per share work out to 0.048 baisas."

Muscat's main index ended 0.13 per cent higher at 11,741.99 points.

The firm, which raised 330.3 million rials in its IPO, will use the funds to build a new manufacturing facility in Sohar, the IPO's lead manager said in a statement yesterday.

In September, investors offered 13 times more funds than the $156 million Galfar Engineering & Contracting Co, Oman's biggest construction company, wanted to raise in the country's second-biggest IPO.