Kuwait’s Capital Market Authority to start stake sale of bourse next month

The Kuwait Capital Market Authority will start next month a public offering of its 50 per cent stake in the local stock exchange.

Only Kuwaiti citizens will be eligible to buy the shares, according to a press release on Sunday. The subscription period will run from Oct. 1 to Dec. 1, with the offering price set at 100 fils per share, or one-tenth of a dinar.

The offering is the second and final stage of a privatisation process that started in February, when the markets regulator sold 44 per cent of the company to a consortium of domestic and international investors.

Boursa Kuwait will be the second in the Gulf to be publicly traded after Dubai’s.

The consortium that bought the stake earlier this year comprised the Athens Stock Exchange, National Investments Company, First Investment Company and Arzan Financial Group.

After the offering is completed, Kuwait’s Public Institution for Social Security will retain the remaining 6 per cent in the company.

Kuwait’s main equity index is up about 24 per cent this year, the most within major peers in the region, amid bets of an upgrade from frontier to major emerging-markets gauges.