Optimism about a year-end pickup in initial public offerings (IPOs) cannot conceal that August was yet another bone-dry month, which continued the plunge of all IPO measures in the MENA region in 2009. Only one company, the Saudi medical services firm Al Mouwasat, undertook a subscription in the Gulf Cooperation Council last month. Al Mouwasat offered 7.5 million shares in a bid to raise $88 million; it did not announce any over-subscription after its IPO closed on August 21. Another company undertook an IPO on the floundering Damascus Securities Exchange (DSE): Qatar National Bank-Syria. The company said its offering of 3.4 million shares for $37 million met with substantial demand, resulting in an over-subscription of almost 2.5 times. The IPO closed on August 10. While the lowdown in regional IPO activity in August has been attributed to a mixture of uninspiring first-half results, the summer vacation season and the beginning
