JEDDAH, 5 November 2005 — Many Saudis, who have subscribed to Dana Gas, the first regional private sector natural gas company to offer shares to the public, have complained about delay in refund of their surplus shares.

They said the Founders Committee of Dana Gas had promised refund within 21 days of its highly successful Initial Public Offering (IPO), which closed on Oct. 3. “Fifteen days have passed, we have not yet received any information about refunds,” they added.

But Dana Gas said the receiving banks had arranged to send by registered post the share allotment letter along with the bankers draft checks for the refund amount or credited the refund amount into the bank account of the subscriber. The Saudis said they had subscribed to Dana Gas shares through Dubai Islamic Bank. “The refund has not arrived in our accounts in the bank,” they told Al-Eqtisadiah, a sister publication of Arab News.

As many as 105 branches of 10 banks were receiving applications from investors to subscribe to Dana Gas shares when the IPO opened on Sept. 20. The IPO saw 425,382 subscriptions from some 100 nationalities.

For the 700 million-dirham retail tranche, 410,636 applications were received from GCC nationals and as per the stated allocation policy, an allotment of 1,704 shares has been declared for each subscriber.

The 1.27 billion-dirham wholesale tranche was oversubscribed 222 times by individual and institutional investors of all nationalities and as per the stated allocation policy, an allocation per subscription of 0.4506 percent has been declared.

The company aims to list its shares on the Abu Dhabi Stock Market (ADSM) as soon as possible after the finalization of the incorporation procedures and prior to the end of this year, with subsequent listings planned in the future on other exchanges in the region.