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Owner of London's Camden Market in year's biggest AIM listing

By Pamela Barbaglia

LONDON (Reuters) - The owner of Camden Market, a popular London visitor attraction that pulls in about 100,000 people each weekend, made its stock market debut on Monday with the year's biggest listing on London's junior Alternative Investment Market (AIM).

Market Tech Holdings, which is backed by Israeli billionaire Teddy Sagi and owns 11 acres of Camden real estate, raised 100 million pounds before expenses from the 50,000,000 new ordinary shares included in the listing at a placement price of 200 pence per share.

By 1352 GMT Market Tech shares were up 15.5 percent at 231 percent per share, valuing the company at about 866 million pounds.

The last AIM listing of the year was oversubscribed, reflecting continuing market optimism after a strong year for initial public offerings (IPOs), with the total raised by Dec. 8 up 72 percent on the same period in 2013, according to Thomson Reuters data.

Sagi steered Market Tech to AIM after buying the Camden Stables Market site for 400 million pounds in March and Camden Lock Market for 100 million pounds in October.

Camden Lock Market is situated by the Regent's canal and ranks as London's fourth-largest attraction, according to the UK's tourist information website, offering an eclectic mix of vintage clothing, quirky accessories, music and food.

Sagi aims to use part of the IPO proceeds to start developing Camden Lock Village, a five-acre canal-side site incorporating residential and commercial space alongside retail space and a new primary school.

The Israeli entrepreneur who founded online gambling software company Playtech also sees further growth potential in the e-commerce sector and is testing an online platform, market.com, to provide a one-stop shop for Camden Market lovers. The site is scheduled for launch next year.

Jefferies was Market Tech's adviser. It also acted as joint broker, global coordinator and joint bookrunner. Shore Capital was a joint broker and a joint bookrunner alongside Berenberg.

(Reporting By Pamela Barbaglia; Editing by David Goodman)