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Riyadh: National Air Services, the Saudi Arabian operator of the largest fleet of private planes in the Middle East, plans an initial public offering of 30 per cent of its stock by the end of 2008 to fund aircraft purchases.
National Air Services, which also owns Saudi low-cost carrier NAS Air, will decide within "weeks" on an adviser for the share sale and aims for an offering "by the end of the third quarter or the beginning of the fourth," president Taher Agueel said.
Agueel declined to say how much money the company plans to raise in the share sale.
The privately held company manages 49 planes, including nine at NAS Air and two at Al Khayala, a business-class unit. In addition to providing aircraft management services, the company is a regional partner of NetJets, the business-jet charter operator owned by Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway.
National Air Services has placed orders for 120 aircraft to be delivered over the next five years at a cost of $4.2 billion.
The company pledged in November to buy 20 Airbus A320 airliners for NAS Air, with an option to buy 18 more, bringing the total potential contract value to $2.77 billion at list prices. It ordered 20 Falcon 2000 LX corporate jets in June, valued at more than $500 million, from Dassault Aviation to be used for the NetJets programme.
Other orders include 20 Gulfstream Aerospace G450s valued at more than $700 million.
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