Subscription to the retail offering in Ghazl El Mahalla’s IPO has been extended until 13 August due to weak investor demand for the football club’s shares, Al Borsa reports. The club was originally expected to wrap up the retail component of the IPO on 1 July but has given investors another six weeks to buy in after receiving bids for less than 10% of the 98 mn shares on offer, the newspaper quotes Mohamed Maher, the CEO of bookrunner Prime Holding, as saying.

Interest in the retail component has been slow: Some 625 investors have so far participated in the subscription since it opened in mid-June, with requests placed for around 8.6 mn shares as of Wednesday, the newspaper quotes Maher as saying. That’s less than 9% of the 98 mn shares the club is offering to the public at EGP 1.02 apiece.

The club will once again be looking to big investors to cover the subscriptions: The club will now allow investors to purchase up to 15 mn shares, up from 2 mn currently, in a bid to attract institutional investors, Maher said. The original cap had deterred larger investors from subscribing to the offering, Public Enterprise Minister Hisham Tawfik told Yahduth Fi Masr on Wednesday (watch, runtime: 7:31).

BACKGROUND- Ghazl El Mahalla is offering a 67.5% stake in its IPO, which is expected to raise EGP 135 mn. The club raised EGP 37 mn during the institutional component of the offering in November.