Al Baha to raise capital for new plant

Saudi Arabia's Al Baha Holding is looking at an public share placing to raise cash for a new plant. [$]

{reg}[PAID={"id":"12,13,14","title":"The content you tried to access is only available to paid subscribers.","link":"1"}] Top executives from Saudi Arabia's Al Baha Holding Corp announced plans of an initial public offering, reports The Peninsula Qatar. The IPO is expected to take place by mid 2010 when the market begins improving.

Company official Husain bin Dajam said, ÔÇ£according to economic analyst, the market will begin to improve in 2010, so we will launch the IPO at the best time. We will not launch the IPO until the market improves.ÔÇØ

Cash raised by the IPO will be used to construct a new facility. Bin Dajm said, the cement plant will be located in southern Al Baha province. This will be the first cement company in Al Baha and the first company of this size in the province. [] the plant will have an annual capacity of four million tons.
According to The Peninsula Qatar, construction of the plant will begin in 2010 and should be completed by 2012. There are currently 12 cement companies located in Saudi Arabia.

The company plans to export 40% of the production since the local market is currently saturated. In 2008, there was a shortage of cement in Saudi Arabia caused by large quantities of exports. The government then implemented an export ban which in turn led to the current saturation problem.
With the export ban in place, prices fell from 23 riyals per 50 kg bag to 12 riyals.