The Far gains marginally on BSE debut

Isaac Pinielo | Friday May 6, 2016 10:56

The company, which is the second to join the local bourse this year, listed following a successful and oversubscribed initial public offering (IPO).

The company, which is majority owned by Choppies Group directors Ram Ottapathu and Farouk Ismail, issued 40 million new units while the selling shareholders sold 40 million of their own shares meaning that 80 million units were being sold.

In an interview with BusinessWeek, BSE chief executive officer, Thapelo Tsheole said the results of the IPO, comprising only 20 million units indicate that subscriptions of 24,035,700 units were received, hence it was 1.20 times oversubscribed.

“Of the 24,035,700 units applications received, 4,035,700 units were received from the retail investors and 20 million from the institutional investors,” he explained.

He said bids by retail investors were fully allotted with 4,035,700 units while the bids by institutional investors were not fully allotted with15,964,300 units allotted instead of the 20 million units they had applied for.

He further noted that results of the private placement comprising only 20 million units received applications of 20 million units from the institutional investors, which were fully allotted.

The 20 million allotted in the IPO plus 20 million allotted in the Private Placement made the 40 million of the public offer.

He said from the results of the book building, founders of The Far Property saw that there was indeed demand in the market.

The Far Property’s portfolio consists of 178 properties worth P1.2 billion located in Botswana and South Africa, the majority of them being warehouses and shopping centres where Choppies operates from.

In total, the company listed 380 million shares at an estimated market capitalisation of P977 million.

Post the placement, Ottapathu and Ismail’s 50 percent each shareholding in FPC will reduce to 39.5 percent each with 21 percent in the hands of public investors.

 The Far Property is the 24th company to list on the BSE domestic board.