Reuters
RABAT May 9 (Reuters) – France’s Total has sold a 30 percent stake in Moroccan subsidiary Total Maroc to the Saudi Zahid Group for an undisclosed sum and Total Maroc plans to sell a further 15 percent stake on Casablanca’s bourse, a company statement said.
Total Maroc commercialises around 1 million tonnes of energy products annually and has more than 270 service stations across the country with an estimated 11 percent market share, or a third of Morocco’s oil distribution.
Total and Zahid Group are already partners in Saudi Arabian lubricants producer Saudi Total Lubricants Ltd.
The initial public offering “is planned in the near future with Total keeping control of Total Maroc and remaining its operator”, the statement from Total Maroc said.
The offering would be the first in Casablanca’s market in 2014 and the second since January 2012. It could help revive Casablanca’s stock market, which has suffered from the knock-on effects of the euro zone crisis and a lack of foreign investors.
Last year, Morocco was downgraded to frontier market status by equity index provider MSCI. As a result, three Moroccan companies – Maroc Telecom, Attijariwafa Bank and BMCE Bank – were added to the MSCI Frontier Markets index.
(Reporting by Aziz El-Yaakoubi; Editing by Patrick Markey, Jason Neely and Dale Hudson)
