Muscat: Bank Nizwa’s 1.5 billion shares will be listed on the Muscat Securities Market today, two days ahead of the original plan.

Market analysts anticipate a listing gain of 25-30 baisas for the 100 baisa-share from Oman’s first Islamic bank, which came out with a RO60 million IPO last month. The listing of Bank Nizwa will add liquidity in the market and attract more and more retail investors, at a time the local bourse was gaining.

The issue was heavily oversubscribed, with the bank raising a whopping RO681 million in the one-month long subscription that closed on May 22.

For the first three days, the price cap will not be applicable for Bank Nizwa shares, since it is a new listing, sources said.

Market sources also said MSM has conducted a mock trading among brokers for Bank Nizwa shares on Thursday, to see how the bourse’s trading network functions since 38,000 investors received share allotment. This was aimed at not only testing the trading platform, but also to see the appetite of the market for the shares. The shares, during the test/mock trading were quoting at 120-125 baisas.

Analysts indicated that retail investors, who are eyeing for short-term gains, will offload their shares in the first few days of listing for short-term gains, while institutions will accumulate stocks from the secondary market. There was a strong response from both domestic and regional institutions.

Each retail investor, who applied for less than 100,000 shares, got 2,000 shares and 18 per cent of the remaining portion.

However, in the case of institutional investors (who applied for more than 100,000 shares), allotment was merely 4.8 per cent. And these institutions, who have certain fixed target for acquiring the share, will enter the market.

Pension funds and other institutional investors from neighbouring countries are expected to mop up shares form the secondary market.

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