Sale of SIC Shares Begins

The Initial Public Offer (IPO) of the State Insurance Company (SIC) will take off from today. Government intends offloading 50 per cent of its stake in the country's largest insurance company.

SIC is seeking to raise about ¢250 billion from a minimum of 200 shares at a price of Gp30, and 97,822,500 shares are expected to be sold to individual and institutional investors.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), regulators of the capital market last Tuesday approved the document meant for the listing of the State Insurance Company on the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE), after it was satisfied with the information presented.

The approval of the prospectus was to enable the company offload some of its shares on the Accra Bourse.

SIC was thus to become the second company to be listed on the Accra Bourse this year after the Ghana Oil Company Limited (GOIL) whose IPO was oversubscribed.

The IPO of the company would run for the next three weeks and indications are that it may be oversubscribed looking at its force in the insurance industry, which it dominates.

The numerous business portfolios it underwrites such as Life Insurance, Non-life Insurance including Motor Insurance, Marine and Aviation Insurance as well as Fire Insurance would attract both foreign and local investor participation.

It would be recalled that CITY &BUSINESS GUIDE reported in its last week Wednesday edition that prospectus meant for SIC's IPO has been approved by the SEC.

Meanwhile, the Life and General Portfolios of the company will be separated, paving the way for the public to buy two separate portfolios of the company.

Managing Director of the insurance company, Peter Osei-Duah in an earlier interview with CITY & BUSINESS GUIDE said the General Portfolio of the company may be listed before the Life Insurance Portfolio.

By Charles Nixon Yeboah