BAGHDAD – An Iraqi telecom company raised nearly $1.3 billion Sunday on Baghdad’s small stock exchange in one of the region’s biggest share offers in years — a sign of investor confidence in the fledgling private sector despite violence that still plagues the country.



“Iraq is a very difficult place to do business in,” said Shwan Taha, head of Rabee Securities, the brokerage firm that organized Sunday’s share float of Asiacell, one of Iraq’s three main mobile phone service providers. “Iraq came out of a long dictatorship. We had 30 years of war and sanctions. We missed a lot of trains, not only one.”



Iraq is now catching up, he said. “No foreign investors come to Iraq thinking they are investing in Switzerland, and for Iraqis themselves, these bombings are becoming daily occurrences.”



Sunday’s share sale by Asiacell more than doubled the market capitalization of the low-volume Iraq Stock Exchange in a single day, from $4.7 billion to $9.65 billion, said Rabee Securities.



Asiacell had offered a quarter of its shares, or 67.5 billion. The initial share price was set at 22 Iraqi dinars, or just under 2 cents. Foreigners bought about 70 percent of the float and Iraqis bought 30 percent, for a total of $1.24 billion, the brokerage firm said.



Regular trading of the shares is to begin Monday.



It was the first stock float on the ISX, which was set up in 2004, a year after the US-led invasion that toppled Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. Taha al-Rubaye, the head of the exchange, said he believes it’s also the largest initial public offering, or IPO, of shares in the Middle East in nearly five years. – AP