The Russian crude producer will float up to 14.9% of its stock in the form of common shares and general depository receipts (GDRs) on stock exchanges in Moscow and London.
The minimum bid to buy shares has been set at 15,000 rubles ($555). Rosneft earlier said the price could range from $5.85 to $7.85 per share brining the company's capitalization to $60 billion. But stock market experts close to the deal said the price would most certainly be set at the top end, at between $7.15 to 7.85 per share.
The British media earlier suggested that the value of Rosneft's IPO could reach $11 billion, while Russia's Federal Property Management Agency said on Thursday it could exceed $14 billion if the company decided to float 400,000 additional shares as an option.
"There is an option in the [Rosneft's] IPO program to sell additional 400 million shares," the Federal Property Management Agency said in a statement. "Taking into account this option, the total value of the IPO could reach $14 bln or more."
The agency said that a surprisingly high number of Russian citizens had applied for shares. It valued the IPO volume on the domestic market at about $1 billion after the books were closed Wednesday.
"We can assume that a large section of [Russian] population that has not been able to become proactive participants in the stock market for various reasons is ready to invest in the shares of Rosneft, one of the leading domestic oil producers," the statement said.
The global coordinators and book-runners for the Rosneft IPO are ABN AMRO Rothschild, Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, JPMorgan Securities Ltd., and Morgan Stanley & Co. International Limited.
