ADNOC, the UAE's gas company, has completed a $2.84 billion share sale.

Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. (ADNOC), the energy giant of United Arab Emirates, announced early Friday that it had completed a 2.84 billion dollar market offering for its ADNOC Gas division.

ADNOC said in a press release that the offering price was 3.40 dirhams for each share.

The sale is the largest share offering in the Middle East and North Africa region (MENA) since the $12,3 billion follow-on offer by Saudi Aramco last June and the largest of recent years.

Parent ADNOC has completed the marketing of 3.1 billion ADNOC Gas shares to institutional investors. This represents 4% of ADNOC Gas total share capital.

According to one of bookrunners, the books for the share sale covered the entire range of offerings.

ADNOC’s gas unit will be operational by 2023, as the state-owned oil giant consolidates its LNG and industrial gas operations.

Since then, it has listed on the Abu Dhabi Stock Exchange and raised about $2.5 billion. This is one of the largest IPOs to have taken place in the region over the past few years.

Parent ADNOC said in November that it saw "significant potential for value creation in ADNOC Gas", but that no decision had been made on "an additional share sale, or the timing and size of such a transaction."

ADNOC announced in a statement Thursday that BofA Securities and Citi are the global coordinators, as well as the bookrunners, for the offering.

ADNOC raised $935m in May of last year when it sold a 5.5% stake to institutional investors in its drilling division. Reporting by Andrew Mills and Abinaya VIjayaraghavan. Editing by Tomasz JANOWSKY, Kirsten DONOVAN, and Lincoln Feast.

(source: Reuters)