Wilderness lists on BSE

Brian Benza
Staff Writer | Thursday April 8, 2010 00:00

The company, which will  simultaneously list on the JSE's Africa board today for its secondary listing, closed its Initial Public Offer   on 26 March after it was oversubscribed by 6 percent.

In the IPO, a 570 applications totalling 3,179,638 shares for the 3 million shares on offer in terms of the IPO were received.

'This represented an over-subscription of just under 6 percent. Accordingly, applicants have been allotted their first 40,000 shares applied for in full, while those applying for more than 40,000 shares received 74 percent of the balance,' said the company.

After the IPO, the company is now 75 percent owned by the previous shareholders, 20 percent by the world's third-largest sportswear company,  Puma, while minority shareholders - among them Stanbic Investment Management Services - takes up the rest.

Apart from the public offer, the company was also running a private placement of its shares

A  total of P124 million was raised from both the private and public offers and much of which will go towards restructuring of the business. 'We are trying to consolidate our business as we operate in many different countries,'  CEO Andy Payne told Mmegi in a recent interview.

'From the P124 million we are going to raise, about P97 million will be used to buy our South African business and consolidate it into one group holdings entity which will be listed on the Botswana Stock Exchange. Consolidating the business makes a lot of sense as all of these businesses are connected and it is better for them to be under one roof.'

In addition to Botswana and South Africa, Wilderness also has operations in Namibia, Malawi, the Seychelles, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

The 26-year-old business is invested in 53 destinations and manages and markets further 17 in seven southern African countries. It also operates specialist travel businesses in six countries as well as a fleet of 49 aircraft.

It employs more than 2,700 people most of them in its Botswana operations, mainly from remote rural communities. The company achieved revenue of P995.05 million for the year to February 2009.

Looking ahead, the company says it aims to double both the number of guests hosted in the business by 2015 and the present areas under influence, while continuously improving the operational efficiencies of its business model.

Wilderness listing takes the number of counters on the bourse's domestic board to 21. The last Company to list on the BSE was FSG in October 2008.