Media and entertainment conglomerate MBC Group drew orders worth more than SAR1.4 billion ($373 million) in the retail tranche of its initial public offering (IPO) in Saudi Arabia.

The company has completed the retail investor offering for the IPO, representing 10% of the total sale, with a subscription coverage of 17.6 times, it said in a statement on Thursday.

A total of 359,464 individual investors placed orders worth SAR1.465 billion from December 14 to 18, with over 3.3 million shares allocated.

The company set the final offer price for the IPO at SAR25 per share, implying a market capitalisation of SAR8.3 billion at listing. The total size of the offering is SAR831 million.

For each retail subscriber, the company allocated a minimum of 9 shares. The rest of the shares are to be allocated on a pro-rata basis depending on demand size, with an average allocation factor of 0.1623%.

The shares will be listed on the Saudi Stock Exchange (Tadawul) main market after the completion of the IPO.

The company, whose main business segments include TV broadcasting, video streaming platform Shahid and MBC Studios, plans to use the proceeds of the offering to repay outstanding debts, boost liquidity and invest in new initiatives to strengthen its market position.

(Writing by Cleofe Maceda; editing by Seban Scaria) seban.scaria@lseg.com