Riyadh – Mubasher: The Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC) has hired NCB Capital to advise on a potential listing of its speciality chemicals business, an offering that could raise several hundred million dollars, Reuters said on Monday citing sources.

SABIC is also sounding out foreign banks for advisory roles and HSBC and JPMorgan are among those in the final phase of pitching for the deal, which might be launched later this year or early 2022, the sources said.

SABIC, which is valued at some $83.5 billion, is a 70%-owned subsidiary of Saudi Aramco.

On 25 November 2020, Bloomberg reported that SABIC is mulling an initial public offering (IPO) of its multibillion-dollar speciality chemicals unit and is speaking with advisers as it weighs a potential listing of the business as early as 2021.

Speciality chemicals generate around $2 billion of annual revenue.