The period will run through Feb. 6, with 7.2 million shares offered RIYADH: As it plans to list on the Saudi Exchange, digital security firm Elm Co. saw a 162 percent jump in profits year-on-year during the first nine months of 2021. Profits of the PIF-owned company hit over SR456 million ($65.6 million), compared to SR175 million a year earlier, Argaam reported. Alongside the results, the provider of secure e-business services and information technology solutions to Saudi private and public sector businesses has commenced its initial public offering"s retail subscription as of today, Feb. 3. The period will run through Feb. 6, with 7.2 million shares offered, according to a bourse filing. After witnessing strong investor demand, the homegrown firm set its price per share at SR128, the top end of the proposed range. This followed the completion of the book-building process, led by Riyad Capital, with the institutional offering being 69.5 times oversubscribed. It drew orders of nearly SR213.2 billion. Offering shares in the public market is a general trend of the Public Investment Fund. As soon as a company matures, it goes public, Al Arabiya reported, citing Elm’s CEO, Abdulrahman Al-Jadhai. Elm has been operating for 20 years, he added. “We will implement many of the works that achieve the company’s plan in the next five years. We have won a number of projects that helped us grow, and we look forward to achieving similar profits in the future,” he said. Al-Jadhai stressed that the company will grow its product portfolio as well as expand into new platforms.