On 30 March Athabasca Oil Sands Corp. (AOSC) announced that it will raise at least CAD 1.35 billion in Canada’s biggest initial public offering (IPO) in years. Athabasca, which is developing Alberta oil sands projects in partnership with a Chinese state oil company, said it will sell 75 million shares at CAD 18 each through a syndicate of underwriters led by Morgan Stanley Canada Ltd and GMP Securities. If an overallotment option is exercised, the value of the offering could top CAD 1.55 billion, the company said. Closing of the deal is expected on 8 April and the shares will be listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange. This will be the largest initial public offering in Canada since at least 2006, followed by CAD 1.26 billion raised by Franco-Nevada Corp. in 2007 and a CAD 946 million IPO by Genworth MI Canada in June 2009. The company has said its oil sands holdings in northern Alberta could contain as much as 7.1 billion barrels of tarry bitumen. The projects, in the MacKay River and Dover areas, could eventually produce as much as 500,000bpd, AOSC has said.
