Emirati Mohamed Alabbar and other Saudi Arabian investors have acquired more than 25 percent of the listing made by the Eastern Company in the Egyptian bourse according to Sarie-Eldin office for legal advices. Egypt has floated new stake of Eastern Company on the Egyptian Exchange (EGX) on Sunday, which is considered be the first to be offered in the government's initial public offering program. Sarie-Eldin office added that Al Abbar and the other investors invested 400 million Egyptian pounds in buying 25 percent of the Eastern Company offered stakes. The private offering of the cigarette company was oversubscribed by 1.8 times at a price of LE 17 which exceeds the company's share price on Thursday, Feb. 28, by 3 percent. Chemical Industries Holding Co., one of the Ministry of Public Enterprise companies, announced to proceed with the public and private offerings in the secondary market on EGX with a maximum number of 101.25 million shares, up to 4.5 percent of the share capital of the Eastern Company issued by the shares owned by the Chemical Industries Company. These shares are for public and private secondary offerings. The floated stake is put up to about 4.5 percent of the company's shares in the stock market. This step came in light of the continuous rise of the company's shares and the stock market's gradual recovery. Eastern Co. is a public company, listed on EGX since September 1995. It operates within the food, beverage and tobacco sector focusing on tobacco. It was established in July 1920. In 2016, Egypt announced the launch of the government's IPO program offering shares over three to five years in several state-owned companies in fields such as petroleum, services, chemicals and real estate. As part of the economic reform program, the government targets offering 15-30 percent of stakes in state-owned companies on the stock exchange (EGX) to increase funding to Egyptian companies, maximize the benefit from state assets, and attract local and foreign capital flows to Egypt.
