Barun hydropower´s IPO oversubscribed by 61 times.
KATHMANDU, March 5: The initial public offerings (IPOs) of Barun Hydropower Company Ltd (BHCL) and Janautthan Samudayik Laghubitta Bikas Ltd (JSLBL) have drawn overwhelming response from public.
People waited in long queues to submit IPO forms at various collection centers from early morning till late in the evening on Wednesday — the closing day.
BHCL and JSLBL have issued primary shares worth Rs 9 million and Rs 48.6 million, respectively, to the public.
The IPO of BHCL, which has developed a 4.5-megawatt hydropower project on Hewa Khola in Sankhuwasabha, has been oversubscribed by 62 times, according to initial estimate Civil Capital Ltd — the issue manager. “It would be difficult to get the exact collection now as we can still see long queues at our collection centers,” Bhisma Raj Chalise, CEO of Civil Capital, told Republica on Wednesday afternoon.
The IPO has generated around Rs 3 billion so far.
“Investors´ turnout was amazing. We had hard time managing the crowd,” Chalise said, adding that Civil Capital have distributed 200,000 application form to investors.
ICRA-Nepal, a credit rating agency, has assigned ´[ICRANP] IPO Grade 4´ rating to the IPO, indicating below average fundamentals.
The response to IPO of Butwal-based JSLBL, which is licensed to work in 10 districts, was also encouraging. Kabindra Dhoj Joshi, managing director of Growmore Merchant Bank Ltd — the issue manager of JSLBL, told Republica that the IPO of the microfinance development bank was oversubscribed by 161 times until Tuesday. “The subscription will go up after we calculate the amount raised on Wednesday — the last day for application,” he added.
UPPER TAMAKOSHI DEADLINE EXTENDED
Citing huge turnout of investors, Upper Tamakoshi Hydropower Project Ltd (UTKHPKL) has extended the deadline to apply for its primary issue.
Sushil Kumar Aryal, spokesperson of Citizens Investment Trust (CIT) told Republica that the company has decided to extend the application deadline for staff and depositors of Employees Provident Fund (EPF) and staff of other lending partners from March 9 to March 29.
CIT is the issue manager of UTKHPL.
“We decided to extend the deadline as we want EPF depositors including those living in remote areas to apply for the shares,” added Aryal.
The application for locals of Dolakha, where the project is located, will be opened from April 1, according to UTKHPL.
The 456-megawatt project has allocated 10.59 million units of shares to the locals of Dolakha, 18,299,520 units to the depositors of the EPF (as of July 30, 2010) and 3,049,920 units to the staff of lending institutions and 4,066,560 units to the staff of UTKHPL and its largest promoter Nepal Electricity Authority.
According to Aryal, around 75,000 out of around 400,000 eligible depositors have already applied for the shares. He also said that they have already distributed 360,000 forms across the country. Two thousand staff of NEA have applied for shares worth Rs 200 million, while Rs 460,000 has been raised from 200 staff of Nepal Telecom (NT).
The company has allocated 4.07 million units of shares to staff members of NEA and UTKHPL, 18.3 million units to depositors of EPF and 3.05 million units to staff of Nepal Telecom, Rastriya Beema Sansthan, Citizens Investment Trust and Employees Provident Fund.
EPF, Nepal Telecom, CIT and Rastriya Beema Sansthan have provided loans of Rs 10 billion, Rs 6 billion, Rs 2 billion and Rs 2 billion, respectively, to UTKHPL.
The company will float 15.89 million units of shares to general public in the next round after getting approval from the Securities Board of Nepal (Sebon), according to the officials of UTKHPL.
Source : Republica
