Ras al-Khaimah’s RAK Ceramics’s public listing of its Bangladesh subsidiary has closed oversubscribed by 15 times, setting a record for the highest-ever initial public offering (IPO) in the country.

The company received more than $258.6m in a public issue process in Bangladesh. It was the highest IPO application ever received in the country with 1.59 million applications.

RAK Ceramics offered a total of 34.51 million equity shares with a face value of $0.14 each, which were priced at $0.69 per share after the price discovery in the book-building process.

The share trading began on 13 June on the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) and Chittagong Stock Exchange (CSE), and during the initial day the share price crossed above $2.88 per share amounting to a record market capitalisation of over $650m.

A 19.35 per cent stake in the company was placed in the IPO while RAK Ceramics UAE retains 72.59 per cent of the post-IPO share holding of the company in Bangladesh.  

RAK Ceramics has been operating in Bangladesh since 2000 and launched the IPO to clear the company’s debts and fund future projects in the country where it currently supplies up to 75 per cent of the domestic demand for sanitary ware and 25 per cent of demand for ceramic tiles.