BTCL shares sale oversubscribed
Brian Benza | Tuesday March 15, 2016 18:00
According to information released by BTCL yesterday, not only were all the shares on sale snapped up, but the uptake is likely to lead to the doubling of shareholders on the Botswana Stock Exchange (BSE) when the company lists next month.
The offer closed on March 4 after running for an extended period of eight weeks during which Batswana and citizen-owned companies were eligible to buy a minimum of 1,000 shares at P1 each.
“We are delighted to announce that the count of submissions made by Batswana was well in excess of 40,000 offers across the nation.
“To put this into context, one needs to consider that prior to the IPO the BSE had in the range of only 20,000 CSD accounts. We have at the very least doubled the number of people who participate in BSE listed shares as a form of wealth creation,” said Anthony Masunga, BTCL chief operating officer. “Even more satisfying is that this double up is made up of Batswana 100 percent.”
Post the April 8 listing, BTCL will also have the largest number of shareholders on the bourse. The oversubscription means that some offers are likely to be allocated fewer shares than they applied for when the final allocation process is complete. BTCL says it, however, cannot disclose the total value of offers received and will only make an announcement once the allocation process has been completed. The BTCL IPO process is regulated by the listings rules of the BSE. In accordance with those rules, a number of checks and balances are required to be undertaken, and BSE approval obtained, before the final IPO results are published. All will be concluded before April 8, 2016.
“What we can state is that we have received offers for the 462 million shares that were available; meaning that we have managed to raise P462 million. The total offers received are well in excess of this figure and thus we anticipate an oversubscription,” said Public Enterprises Evaluation and Privatisation Agency (PEEPA) CEO, Kgotla Ramaphane.
The 462 million shares on offer comprise 212 million shares being sold by government and 250 million being issued and sold by BTCL.
As a way of trying to guard against hoarding of shares by a financially able few, an allotment committee was set up to distribute shares fairly across retail and institutional investors. “The work of the Allocation Committee has already commenced. As there is an oversubscription, the committee will ensure that there is a fair and equitable allocation of shares among the applicants in line with the Prospectus and the BSE requirements,” said BTCL managing director, Paul Taylor.
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 has undergone a series of postponements. It was first delayed to 2012, and then later pushed to August 2014 before it was again deferred to December 2014 and then 2015. In preparation for the privatisation, BTCL effected a 800 for one share split to create 800 million total shares, which were wholly owned by the government. BTCL issued a further 250 million shares taking the company’s total new shares in issue to 1.050 billion shares. 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 (5 percent) as on the day of listing of the company on the BSE.