Just before 2 o’clock, a rumour went round the London market: Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, one of the world’s richest men, is floating his Kingdom Holding investment vehicle.
The run-up has been long enough so maybe, just maybe this is finally going to happen.
There’s been an outbreak of reports that Alwaleed, whose business owns stakes in Citigroup, News Corp, as well as Time Warner, Apple, and Motorola, is about to push the button on the largest float in the history of the Middle East.
Exhibit A - stories in the Arabian press in May that the Prince expected to launch an IPO of Kingdom Holding by the end of next month, with reports suggesting he could raise up to $7bn with a 30% stake sale.
Those stories in turn cited reports in the Sunday Times in April suggesting such a float was coming.
No sign of that particular article when we checked - but we did find a Sunday Times story from last August, saying that Alwaleed was “moving closer” to a $7bn float, expected to take place in the following two to three months.
Finally, the Business magazine, sharp as a tack, reported last week that, yes, Prince Alwaleed bin Talal was days away from announcing the long-awaited IPO - adding that we were looking at a float of 30 per cent of the business, valued at around $5bn. That followed a story in the Asharq al-Awsat newspaper two days earlier.
And here we are.
Except not quite. After a full tonnage of newsprint, a Bloomberg report on Monday said that Prince Alwaleed is selling just 5 per cent of Kingdom Holding - which would be very Russian of him, offering profile and a very public crystallisation of value. And the company has not yet received a date for the share sale from the Saudi market regulator.
So the float has possibly got smaller, in money raising terms - but doesn’t appear to have necessarily got any closer. Room for a few more stories yet.
