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Oman’s sovereign wealth fund, the Oman Investment Authority (OIA), is set to launch several initial public offerings (IPOs) and enlist state assets, as the sultanate looks to boost its capital market, Bloomberg reported on Thursday.
“Several dozen” listings are to be expected over the next five years, with around 30 assets up for IPOs, paving the way for the sultanate to secure the much-coveted emerging-market status for its local bourse, the report said.
Oman seeks to elevate the status of its stock exchange from “frontier market” to “emerging market”.
According to Thuraiya Ahmed Al Balushi, the wealth fund’s manager for economic diversification, there could be deals in the energy and logistics sectors that will be bigger than the recent offering of Omani state energy company OQ Gas Networks SAOG, which raised around $749 million in its IPO.
“OIA aims to enhance private-sector participation to deepen the capital market, paving the way for an upgrade by MSCI from frontier to emerging-market status,” Al Balushi told Bloomberg.
The sultanate and Bahrain are the only two countries in the Gulf region that are not assigned the “emerging market” status by MSCI.
OQ's share offering in October was the biggest since the 2010 IPO of telecom firm Nawras, which is now Ooredoo Oman.
(Writing by Cleofe Maceda; editing by Seban Scaria)
