BTCL shares sale opens Monday
Brian Benza | Tuesday January 5, 2016 18:00
Under the company’s Initial Public Offer (IPO), Batswana and citizen owned companies are eligible to buy a minimum of 1000 shares translating to P1, 000.
No transactions cost will be levied on the buyers, although investors are required to open a Central Securities Depository (CSD) account with the Botswana Stock Exchange (BSE).
According to the IPO’s prospectus, the offer is expected to run for eight weeks upto Friday, 04 March 2016.
BTCL shares are expected to be listed on the BSE on the 8th of April, 2016, where after trading would still be restricted among citizen investors only.
The 462 million shares on offer comprise 212 million shares being sold by government and 250 million being issued and sold by BTCL.
In preparation for the privatisation, BTCL effected an 800 for one share split to create 800 million total shares, which are wholly owned by the government. BTCL’s issue of a further 250 million shares will take the company’s new total shares in issue to 1.050 billion shares.
“BTCL will issue 250 million shares to raise P250 million to be applied as working capital and to fund capital expenditure in relation to the growth of the company,” reads the prospectus.
Post the listing, the government will retain 51 percent of the 1.05 billion shares while the workers will hold five percent with the remaining 44 percent expected to be in public hands.
An employee share trust has been established which will hold 52 500 000 shares (44 percent) as on the day of listing of the company on the BSE.
“The employee share trust will be managed by trustees appointed by the company.
“Dividends declared by the company on the 52 500 000 shares will be payable into the Employee Share Trust. Such dividends will, in turn, be distributed to the citizen employees by the trustees,” reads the prospectus.
While investors will be required to purchase a minimum of 1000 shares in multiples of 100, no ceiling has been placed on the number of shares that can be bought.
In the event of an over-subscription, the prospectus says the order of preference in terms of the allotment and allocation will be natural persons, who are citizens of Botswana, then corporate entities registered or operating in Botswana which are wholly citizen owned.
BTCL, which is the first company to list on the local bourse’s main board since Choppies four years ago, posted an adjusted profit of P146 million in the year ended March 2015. The company is however expected to record a loss after tax of P127 million in the year to March 2016 due to a large impairment charge, before it bounces back to a profit of P114 million in 2017.
The prospectus, which holds further financial details of the company and growth prospects, is being distributed through BTCL offices, Barclays Bank branches in Botswana, select BotswanaPost branches in Botswana and select Choppies branches.
The implementation of BTCL’s privatisation commenced immediately after cabinet approved the privatisation strategy in June 2006. Initially slated for August 2011, the BTCL IPO launch was postponed several times. It was first delayed to 2012, and then later pushed to August 2014 before it was again deferred to December 2014 and then 2015.
BTCL was formed ahead of the separation of the incumbent operator, Botswana Telecommunications Corporation (BTC) into two entities incorporated under the companies Act, being BTCL and Botswana Fibre Networks (BoFiNet) which is wholly owned by the government.