The initial public offering (IPO) of engineering and construction company Enemona was the focus on the Bulgarian Stock Exchange (BSE) this week. Most of the market players remained on the sidelines, keeping their cash for Enemona’s IPO and forthcoming offerings of Agria Group Holding and printing company Billboard, Apostol Apostolov, a broker with Sofia-based TBI Invest, told SeeNews wire agency. Enemona carried out an up to 33.6 million leva IPO on November 26.
Enemona’s offering, of two million shares, was 30 times oversubscribed, Elana Trading said in a statement. The minimum price of the IPO was set at 11.0 leva per share.
The issue price puts Enemona’s initial market capitalisation at 200.5 million leva. Shares in the company are expected to start trading on January 8.
Agria will launch its public offering at the end of this week, while Billboard will conduct its IPO in early December.
Meanwhile the special purpose vehicle (SPV) Energetics and Energy Savings Fund, majority-owned by Enemona, said it will look for a 1.04 million leva capital increase. The SPV plans to raise its capital to 975 000 leva through the issue of 325 000 new shares with a face value of 1.0 lev each and an issue price of 3.2 leva a share, the fund said in a statement. The capital increase will be considered successful if at least 260 000 shares are subscribed.
Enemona owns 70 per cent of the fund’s capital and Ecoinvest Holding, a former Bulgarian privatisation fund, owns the other 30 per cent.
The total turnover of the Bulgarian Stock Exchange (BSE) on November 26 rose marginally to 7.2 million leva, from 6.5 million leva on November 23. The blue-chip Sofix index, which includes the 17 most liquid stocks on the BSE, fell 0.31 per cent to 1644.32 points and the broad BG40 index lost 0.18 per cent to end at 515.43 points. Among the most traded shares on November 26 were First Investment Bank, holding firm Chimimport and Industrial Holding Bulgaria. Shares in First Investment Bank lost 0.35 per cent to 10.91 leva on turnover of about 117 000 shares, Chimimport slid 2.3 per cent to 14.45 leva with about 72 000 shares changing hands and Industrial Holding Bulgaria fell 2.3 per cent to 10.89 leva on a volume of 55 000 shares.
The same day AIG Global Investment Group’s (AIGGIG), majority owner of Bulgaria’s dominant fixed-line telecoms operator BTC, acquired less than half of the outstanding shares of BTC that it was targeting in its buyout bid. A total of 197 individuals holding 981 085 shares and 32 companies owning 10 233 840 shares in BTC had accepted the buyout bid launched by AIG’s unit Nef Telecom Bulgaria, which controls 90.07 per cent of BTC’s capital, BTC said in a statement.
In October, Nef Telecom Bulgaria offered to pay 11.3 leva for each of the 28.66 million shares in BTC it did not own. Earlier this year AIGGIG agreed to buy a 65 per cent stake in BTC for 1.08 billion euro from Novator, a company of Icelandic tycoon Thor Bjorgolfsson. The acquisition price for each share was set at 11.25 leva, including the 2006 dividend of 0.55 leva a share. AIGGIG later increased its stake in BTC to 90.07 per cent and said it planned to delist the company from the BSE.
In an article published on November 27, Bulgarian-language Pari daily said that at least 150 companies could be removed from the register of public companies and delisted from the BSE. These were companies registered for trade, after the voucher privatisation process, by administrative means. Their total market capitalisation was approximately 1.9 billion leva, Pari said. Most of the companies did not meet the criteria for being listed on the BSE and had not been traded for years. A large number of them were undergoing liquidation procedures.
There are two ways to delist a company from the stock exchange. One is by a tender offer, offered by the majority shareholder, and the other is by a decision of two-thirds at the annual general shareholders’ meeting. The law does not provide for administrative delisting.
