Dubai's Emaar Properties confirmed on Monday that the initial sale of shares in its malls unit priced at the top of the proposed range amid massive demand from investors, making it the largest stock offer in a Gulf Arab economy since 2008.

Shares in the initial public offer (IPO) of Emaar Malls Group (EMG) were priced at Dh2.90 per share ($0.88), giving an overall sale value of Dh5.8 billion ($1.58 billion), the parent firm said in a bourse filing.

With a market value of Dh37.7 billion upon listing, it will become the third-largest stock on the Dubai Financial Market when it begins trading on October 2.

It is the largest IPO in the Gulf since Saudi Arabian Mining Company (Ma'aden) raised $2.47 billion from its flotation on the Saudi stock exchange in July 2008.

Demand for EMG's offer had been expected to be high since a statement on the day after the announcement of the offer's Dh2.50-2.90 price range disclosed that institutional investors had already pledged to buy all the shares on offer to them.

A message from the banks arranging the transaction said at the end of last week that bids from investors worth less than the top price would not obtain any shares.

In total, the portion of shares allocated to institutional investors was covered more than 30 times by orders from 470 accounts, while retail investors submitted orders worth over 20 times the amount of shares available to them, the filing said.

Of the offer of 2 billion shares, equivalent to 15.4 per cent of EMG, 70 per cent will go to institutional investors and the remaining 30 per cent to retail accounts, it added.

Bank of America-Merrill Lynch, JP Morgan Chase and Morgan Stanley were joint global coordinators of the offer, and four other banks acted as joint bookrunners. - Reuters