About 55,000 applicants have registered for the Vodafone Qatar initial public offering until April 23, company CEO Grahame Maher has said. He said the number would be “much higher” as participating banks were accepting applications at the weekend. “Some of the banks are taking subscriptions over the weekend and again we will not have those numbers until they have processed them in their back offices. Then I expect today to be very busy and do not expect to have the final numbers until Monday afternoon or even Tuesday morning once all individual and institutional offers are processed,” Maher told Gulf Times yesterday. The IPO closes at 1pm today. Vodafone Qatar will raise QR3.38bn by selling its 40% stake through the two-week-long initial public offering which began on April 12. The company plans to sell 338.1mn shares at QR10.25 each. Vodafone, which won the bid for Qatar’s second mobile operator licence in December 2007, sold a 15% stake to three Qatari funds and Qatar Foundation in June last year. The Vodafone – Qatar Foundation joint venture has a 45% stake in the company. Vodafone plc stake in the joint venture is 51% while it holds a 22.95% stake in the company. The IPO is limited to Qataris and Qatari institutions. But international investors will be able to buy Vodafone Qatar shares once it is listed on the Doha Securities Market after the IPO. Allocation will be based on individual investors’ orders being allocated up to the first 2,500 offer shares of their order; with institutional investors being allocated up to the first 2,500 offer shares of their order thereafter. Following that all orders will be filled on a pro rata basis. Individual investors will be able to apply for a minimum subscription of 250 offer shares with multiples of 50 offer shares thereafter. The maximum subscription of offer shares by an individual investor is 1,690,800 offer shares. Institutional investors will be able to apply for a minimum subscription of 25,000 offer shares with multiples of 500 offer shares thereafter. The maximum subscription by an institutional investor is 1,690,800 offer shares. http://gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=286959&version=1&template_id=36&parent_id=16

Follow us on our social media channels: @ILQlive @ILQlive @ILoveQtr ILoveQatar