Shares in OQ Base Industries made their trading debut on December 15 and despite a slow start have since cleared issue price.

Shares opened at OR0.10 versus pricing of OR0.111 per share in the OR188m (US$489m) IPO and briefly touched issue in the first 10 minutes before falling back to close at Dh0.107, down 3.6%.

Shares in OQBI have risen steadily and closed on Thursday at OR0.115.

Although muted, the first-day performance was an improvement on previous spin-off OQ Exploration and Production, which saw its shares close down 8.2% on debut. The stock is still well below water, closing at OR0.340 on Friday versus its OR0.39 issue price.

Oman is a developing market though deal flow from the country is moving faster than some had anticipated. OQ has a pipeline of potential spinoffs while logistics company Asyad Group is expected to launch an IPO this year for its shipping subsidiary.

Bank Dhofar, Bank Muscat and Morgan Stanley were joint global coordinators on OQBI, and joint bookrunners with BSF Capital and Kamco Invest.

Source: IFR Muted start for second OQ spin-off | IFR