Oman’s Bank Muscat $251 Mln Rights Issue 128 Pct Covered

Bank Muscat, Oman’s largest lender by market value, saw its 96.7 million rials ($251.2 million) rights issue 127.5 percent covered by investors, the bank said in a bourse filing on Monday.

The lender received bids worth 123.3 million rials from 1,675 investors for the share sale, which took place between July 9-23 and was used to raise capital to fund credit growth and its upcoming venture into Islamic finance.

The issue consisted of 226.5 million shares offered at 0.427 rials per share, around a 25-percent discount to the share price when the deal was announced at the end of June.

Shares in Bank Muscat closed on Sunday up 0.2 percent at 0.53 rials, down 17.8 percent year-to-date.

Following the rights issue, the issued and paid-up capital will be 2,038,510,684 shares with a nominal value of 0.1 rials each, the statement said.

Bank Muscat said in December it would open an Islamic banking window after regulatory changes in the sultanate permitted sharia-compliant finance for the first time.

Bank Muscat posted a 19-percent increase in second-quarter net profit last month, helped by strong lending growth in the first half of the year.

Reuters