Rabat: Total Maroc, owned by France’s Total, plans to raise between Dh612 million and Dh720 million ($74.48 million) in an initial public share offer, Moroccan bourse watchdog CDVM said in a statement.
Total Maroc commercialises around 1 million tonnes of energy products annually and has more than 270 service stations across the country with an estimated 11 per cent market share, or a third of Morocco’s oil distribution.
The offering would be the first in Morocco in 2015 and could help revive Casablanca’s stock market, which has suffered from the knock-on effects of the Eurozone crisis and a lack of foreign investors.
Casablanca’s benchmark MASI index has lost 0.35 per cent in the last three months. Morocco was downgraded to “frontier market” status by index provider MSCI in 2013, due to a lack of liquidity in the market.
Total Maroc has hired two Moroccan banks — Attijariwafa bank, the local unit of France’s Societe Generale — for an offering expected from May 11 to May 15 which will involve 15 per cent of Total’s shares, the regulator’s statement said.
CDVM said it had approved the issue. The company will sell 1.34 million shares which it has priced at between Dh455 and Dh535 apiece.
Last year, France’s Total sold a 30 per cent stake in Total Maroc to the Saudi Zahid Group for an undisclosed sum. Total and Zahid Group are already partners in Saudi Arabian lubricants producer Saudi Total Lubricants Ltd.
