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19.10.2007 Business & Finance

GSE Releases GOIL’s IPO Today

19.10.2007 LISTEN
By Daily Guide

The Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE) will today release the official figures for the Initial Public Offer (IPO) of the Ghana Oil Company Limited (GOIL).

Shares of the oil marketing company have already been oversubscribed, triggering the release of additional 12.9 per cent shares of government. Government had initially offloaded up to 49 per cent of its shareholdings.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), regulator of the capital market last week approved the IPO results that will pave way for the listing of GOIL after the lead broker, Merban Stock Brokers had forwarded the results.

Several institutional investors such as SSNIT and ECOBANK have bought a chunk of GOIL's shares with ECOBANK subscribing 100 billion old Ghana cedis.

Many financial and security analysts considered GOIL's listing as a potential stock, coming on the heels of the nation's discovery of huge oil reserves at the Cape Three Point in the Western Region.

Significantly, GOIL's balance sheet for the last financial year also makes it an attractive commodity. Its financial result for 2006 showed that the company registered an impressive net turnover growth of 39.2 per cent, making ¢1.92 trillion as against ¢1.38trillion recorded for 2005.

The listing of GOIL on the GSE, which is expected to be done on October 30th, 2007, will make it the first public company to be listed this year.

Meanwhile, following announcements of the revised petroleum prices for October, 2007 by the National Petroleum Authority (NPA), GOIL has recorded and maintained the lowest rates in the sales of fuel products on the market.

According to this month's revision, the Maximum Indicative Prices for Super or Petrol, Kerosene and Diesel are GHp 0.9392, GHp 0.7938 and GHp 0.9044 per liter respectively.

A careful study of purchasing rates for fuel products among the country's major Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs) comprising Total, Shell, Agapet, Allied and GOIL, indicates that GOIL is the marketer with the lowest rates on almost all products.

While a litre of Super sells at GHp 0.939 for Total, Shell, Agapet and Allied, GOIL's price stands low at GHp 0.938. The price of Diesel for GOIL is GHp 0.903 while it is up at GHp 0.904 collectively for the other OMCs. However, the price of Kerosene remained the same at GHp 0.793 for both GOIL and Total.

This falls in line with the company's plans of upgrading its services by carrying out reinvigoration, rehabilitation and expansion programmes using proceeds made from its first ever offer of 42.7 per cent shareholdings to the public, which ended on October 5 this year.

BY Charles Nixon Yeboah & Felix Klutse

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