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public offering (IPO) subscription to the public next week to raise
Tk 486.08 crore. Subscription will begin next Sunday and close on
Thursday (October 8). However the opportunity will remain open to
non-resident Bangladeshis up to October 18. Raihan Shamsi, chief
corporate affairs officer of Grameenphone, said: "We are optimistic
about the launch of the GP IPO next week. Our IPO subscription
period for investors will begin nationwide on October 4 and run till
October 10 for resident Bangladeshis and October 18 for the
non-resident Bangladeshis." "We are honoured to be a part of the
largest IPO in the history of the Bangladesh capital market and would
like to thank SEC, DSE and CSE for their on-going commitment and
support to our transaction throughout the process," he said. Despite
concerns over liquidity outflows from the market during subscription
period, market insiders anticipate no such impacts. "Those who intend
to bid for Grameenphone shares have already withdrawn money from the
market by selling stocks from their portfolios," Sheikh Mortuza
Ahmed, head of merchant banking division of Prime Bank, told The
Daily Star yesterday. It means, he said, the market has already
absorbed the first shock and it did not observe any major fall.
Grameenphone, which received the final approval from the Securities
and Exchange Commission (SEC) on August 20 , will float 69 , 439 ,400
ordinary shares worth Tk 10 each, in addition to a Tk 60 premium
per share. As the market lot has been fixed at 200 shares, a
prospective investor will have to deposit Tk 14 ,000 to any of the
15 selected banks and the state-run Investment Corporation of
Bangladesh for Grameenphone shares. Cititgroup Global Markets
Bangladesh Private Ltd is the issue manager of the IPO, the largest
of its kind in the history of the Bangladeshi market. The market has
been waiting for the Grameenphone IPO for a long time now, but it
was delayed several times. Although Grameenphone finalised its plan to
raise $300 million from the capital market in July 2008 , it cut
the IPO and pre-IPO size to $125 million, as the company's valuation
dropped to $3.2 billion from a previous $3.75 billion and the
foreign institutional investors did not participate in pre-IPO
bidding due to the global economic slowdown. The pre-IPO or private
placement was later completed with local participation in December
last year. The final prospectus was submitted in January this year.
But the Dhaka Stock Exchange in March this year decided not to list
the securities with a face value of Tk 1 and urged Grameenphone to
increase its share price to Tk 10. Later, with direction from SEC,
Grameenphone increased share prices to Tk 10.
