Gulf Finance House (GFH) has announced the price range for its international offering of Global Depositary Receipts (GDRs).

One of the Gulf region's leading Shari'a compliant investment banks has published a preliminary prospectus in this connection.

Offer price range from $2.50 to $3.00 per share and $25.00 to $30.00 per GDR, with each GDR representing an interest in 10 shares, implying a value range for the offer of $250 million to $300 million.

Global offering are for approximately 10,000,000 GDRs, representing approximately 100,000,000 existing ordinary shares or 14 per cent of the issued equity capital of GFH.

The pricing and allocations are expected to be determined towards end of June 2007 and pricing to be announced soon after.

Shares in the form of GDRs will be offered to international institutional investors. GFH shares are already listed on the Bahrain and Kuwait Stock Exchanges and on the Dubai Financial Market and it is intended that the GDRs will be traded and listed on the London Stock Exchange, said an official spokesman.

The GDRs to be sold in the offering will comprise existing shares to be offered by certain shareholders of GFH who have agreed to participate. For GFH, the offering is expected to provide it with an enhanced international capital markets profile to support its strategy for the sustainable growth and expansion of its business within the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries and the wider Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region and into Asia.

Merrill Lynch International and UBS Limited have been appointed Joint Global Coordinators for the offering. HSBC is appointed co-lead manager to the transaction and Deutsche Bank will act as depository for the GDRs.

'Gulf Finance House is proud of its reputation as a leader within Islamic finance. Over the next few weeks, we look forward to explaining our record and strategy in more detail to international investors,' said chairman of GFH Dr Fuad Al-Omar.

'Gulf Finance House has enjoyed considerable success since its foundation in 1999 and we intend to continue this growth by growing our core development infrastructure business and carefully expanding into new countries through strategic partnerships,' said CEO of GFH Esam Janahi.Trade Arabia News Service