SYDNEY/SINGAPORE - Agri-food giant Olam Group is aiming for a June launch of its agricultural unit’s dual listing in Singapore and Saudi Arabia, two sources with knowledge of the matter said, in a move that could raise up to US$1 billion (S$1.3 billion).
The initial public offering (IPO), the first of such a dual listing in the world, is subject to regulatory approval, one of the sources said.
The sources could not be named as the information was not yet public.
Most of the IPO’s processes have been completed, ranging from hosting global roadshows to getting indicative commitments from anchor investors, one of the sources added.
Olam declined to comment.
The dual IPO on the stock exchanges of Singapore and Saudi Arabia would make Olam Agri the first company to list in both countries and also the first non-Gulf Cooperation Council incorporated business to list in Saudi Arabia.
The dual listing would also solidify South-east Asia as a global IPO hot spot. The region is the only part of the Asia-Pacific region, excluding Japan, where the IPO market has grown in 2023, rising 4.5 per cent to US$2.23 billion, according to Refinitiv data.
The share sale would also give a lift to Singapore’s IPO activity, which amounted to only US$68.7 million in 2022, not counting IPOs of special purpose acquisition companies, versus US$1.94 billion in 2021, Refinitiv data showed.
The plan to list Olam Agri comes after Singapore-based commodity trader Olam sold a 35.4 per cent stake in the unit in 2022 for US$1.24 billion to Saudi Agricultural and Livestock Investment, a unit of Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund Public Investment Fund.
The deal valued Olam Agri at an equity valuation of US$3.5 billion, Olam said previously.
Besides Olam Agri, Olam has plans to list its other unit, Olam Food Ingredients, as part of a business overhaul flagged three years ago. The listing will take place after Olam Agri’s IPO, Olam’s co-founder and group chief executive Sunny Verghese told a news conference in January.
Olam is one of the world’s biggest agricultural commodity traders. It counts Singapore investment firm Temasek as its largest shareholder with a 51 per cent stake, followed by Japanese trading house Mitsubishi Corp with 14.4 per cent, Refinitiv data showed. REUTERS
