Middle East Healthcare’s shares debut on Tadawul

The Saudi Stock Exchange (Tadawul) has listed shares of Middle East Healthcare Co. (MEAHCO) today on the retail sector’s index. The shares will have a fluctuation limit of 10 percent and their symbol will be 4009.

MEAHCO’s listing, the second on the Saudi stock exchange in 2016, will bring the number of Tadawul-listed retailers to 16 companies.

The share sale, which ended last Wednesday, was 274.2 percent oversubscribed after 405,960 retail subscribers invested SAR 1.45 billion to buy 22.71 million shares. The healthcare service provider, which owns and operates Saudi German Hospitals, allotted 10 shares to each subscriber in its IPO.

The company kicked off the IPO, offering up to 8.28 million shares, or 30 percent of floated shares, to retail investors at SAR 64 per share.

Last February, the Saudi healthcare provider revealed plans to expand within Saudi Arabia over the next three years. As many as 85 hospital beds will be added to Saudi German Hospital branches in the kingdom, including 32 in Jeddah, 30 in Riyadh and 23 in Madinah.

The kingdom's largest healthcare service provider, founded by the Batterjee family, has four wholly-owned hospitals branded Saudi German Hospitals located in Jeddah, Riyadh, Madinah and Khamis Mushait. It also owns a 32.3 percent of Hail National Health Services Co., and is currently building a new hospital in Hail.

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