(Bloomberg) -- The United Arab Emirates’ main oil company sold $935 million worth of shares in a secondary offering of its drilling unit, a rare such deal for the region. The stock jumped to a record high.

State-run Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. offloaded 880 million shares in Adnoc Drilling Co. at 3.90 dirhams each to institutional investors in a secondary offering, according to a statement. That compares with a closing share price of 4.13 dirhams on Wednesday. 

The sale will increase Adnoc Drilling’s free float to more than 16%, potentially resulting in its inclusion in broader market indices, Adnoc said. The larger number of shares available to trade could trigger about $333 million of inflows from passive investors in benchmark indexes from MSCI Inc. and FTSE Russell, according to Ahmed El Difrawy, head of data and index research at EFG Hermes Holding.

Secondary share sales have been rare in Gulf countries. The UAE has only seen three such deals, including when Adnoc raised $1.6 billion by selling stock and exchangeable bonds in its fuel retailing unit three years ago, data compiled by Bloomberg show. 

The region has been a bright spot for IPOs, with Saudi Arabia seeing a burst of activity in the last few weeks and several drawing many times more orders from investors than there are shares available.

Adnoc’s holding in Adnoc Drilling will drop to 78.5% after the offering. US company Baker Hughes Co. owns 5%.

--With assistance from Farah Elbahrawy.

(Updates with share move in the first paragraph.)

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