October 26, 2003	Sunday	Sha’aban 29, 1424

KARACHI, Oct 25: The initial public offering of Oil and Gas Development Company (OGDC) will be held from November 10-14, the Karachi Stock Exchange announced on Saturday.

The government plans to sell a 2.5pc stake in OGDC, which will be the country’s biggest IPO in nine years, when a 12pc stake in state-run Pakistan Telecommunications Co. was sold.

The exchange said OGDC would be provisionally listed on Oct 29, with public subscriptions to start November 10 and end November 14.

A total of 107.5 million OGDC shares would be sold at a price of Rs32 each through the stock offering, with a greenshoe option that may raise the stake sale to 5pc, or 215 million shares.

The oil firm, which has a paid-up capital of Rs43 billion, holds the largest share of oil and gas reserves in the country — 48pc of total oil and 37pc of total natural gas. KASB Securities is advising on the IPO.

In the second phase of the company’s privatization, the government is also considering the sale of minority stakes in the state-run OGDC internationally through global depositary receipts.

The government is also trying to sell a 51pc controlling stake in Pakistan State Oil as part of its privatization programme, which includes the sale of state-run banks, power and telecom utilities.—Dow Jones Newswires