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04.11.2008 Business & Finance

UT Public Offer Oversubscribed

04.11.2008 LISTEN
By Clement Atagra - newtimesonline.com

The Initial Public Offer, launched by the Unique Trust Financial Services Limited in September this year recorded a marginal oversubscription of 1.7 per cent after the close of the offer on October 17.

The amount that was expected to be raised with the 90,293,000 shares, valued at GHc30 per share was GHc 27,087,000 but it ended up raising GHc27, 550,680.

Announcing this in Accra last Friday, the Executive Director of Databank,managers of the shares, Opoku Gyamfi- Boateng mentioned two significant factors which if were allowed would have resulted in the offer recording a much higher subscription rate.

He stated that the company seriously discouraged foreign investors who had indicated that they wanted to buy over 10 million shares in the share offer because they wanted indigenous Ghanaians to benefit from the offer.

Consequently, he said local individuals and institutions subscribed for 99.53 per cent of the offer.

Additionally, he said the Social Security and National Insurance Trust, which usually buyS the bulk of shared offered in the country, were not listed as that would have deprived the ordinary Ghanaians the opportunity to buy some of the shares.

He explained further that what all these meant is that every one who bought the shares will get what the company promised share holders.

'It is better to have a minimal over subscription and shareholders getting their due rather than scoring 100 per cent oversubscription and not being able to ensure that you satisfy your shareholders”, he explained.

Mr. Gyamfi-Boateng further explained that the amount raised represented almost two times the total capital raised by all indigenous Ghanaian companies in the history of the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE), excluding privatisation and secondary offers.

In the wake of the current financial crisis in many countries he indicated that the results were a big success.

He announced that on November 21, 2008, the UT Financial Services Limited will formally join the ranks of the GSE with a market capitalisation of GH¢63,219,750, making it the 19th most capitalised company in Ghana.

The Chief Executive Officer of the UT Financial Services, Prince Kofi Amoabeng said he was happy with the results because the offer suffered a lot of drawbacks.

Among these he said were bad publicity and also because the Fund Managers could not pick up their forms early enough because of the credit crunch in the world market.

“We are only happy that Ghanaians will be able to get what they bid for,” he said.

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