BTCL shares sale deferred
Keikantse Lesemela | Thursday November 6, 2014 10:59
A statement from the Ministry of Transport and Communication has revealed that the date was postponed due to issues raised by members of the public in the past two BTCL Initial Public Offer (IPO) pitsos. The statement indicated that individual citizens, indicated that they had limited understanding of an IPO as well as how one can participate and benefit from it and they requested ample time to organise funding that they would use to purchase the shares as the current IPO was too close.
The offer period is expected to be open for up to eight weeks. The statement further revealed that the initiatives were intended to enhance other ongoing activities geared towards ensuring that many citizens take advantage of this opportunity.
BTC Public Relations Manager, Golekanye Molapise, told Mmegi Business that postponement of the date would give the corporation ample time to conduct road shows in order to create awareness to all Batswana. He noted that they had hosted several pitsos but some Batswana still did not have a clear understanding of the IPO.
“We will extend the awareness campaign being undertaken for this IPO to ensure that a wide reaching and more informative education programme is delivered. We have also decided to extend the offer to enable Batswana to identify sources of funding,” he said.
Molapise added that BTCL board was still drafting a strategy to conduct the road shows in towns and villages.
“We are currently planning on conducting the road shows in towns and villages. We have not yet set the dates but we are going to start in November. We will publish the schedule and the venues as time goes by,” he said.
While the share price will only be known when the prospectus supporting the IPO is published next month, recent trends on the local bourse suggest a price between P1.00 and P2.00. A share price within that range would be keeping in line with trends in the most recent Botswana Stock Exchange (BSE) primary listings. Property group, Letlole la Rona listed in June 2011 at P1.45, while mega-supermarket chain, Choppies, debuted in January 2012 at P1.15. Property group, New Africa Properties had one of the highest IPO prices in recent years when it debuted in September 2011 at P2.00.
The last local listing, Shumba Coal, debuted in April 2013 at P1.00.
Through the privatisation, 51 percent of the parastatal will remain in the hands of government, while five percent will be reserved for citizen employees of BTC.
The remaining 49 percent will be sold exclusively to individual citizens and citizen-owned companies, through an Initial Public Offer leading to an eventual listing of the company on the Botswana Stock Exchange (BSE).