ALL Namibian individuals and small investors who applied for partial ownership in Standard Bank Holding Bank Namibia will be allocated the shares they applied for, the bank has said.
In a statement issued last Friday, the bank said over 12 500 applications were received from local and one international investor(s), to the value N$1,4 billion.
The initial public offer was for 81 million shares, however, investors demanded 160 million shares, leading to an oversubscription of almost twice the public offer.
The 81 million shares offer raised N$722,2 million.
Retail applicants, including individuals, rendered 12 478 applications and they will all be considered, the bank said.
Institutional investors including pension funds and investment companies made 45 applications to the value of N$1,1 billion, an indication that the market is indeed flooded with money looking for investments.
Only one international investor was attracted to the Standard Bank offer, making an application worth N$70 million.
While all the retail applicants would be allocated a stake in the bank, only 41,58% of N$1 billion worth of applications rendered by institutional investors will be accepted and 20% of the N$70 million from the international investor will be considered.
The rejection of part of the Namibian institutional investors and the international investor will result in at least N$700 million that should look for investments elsewhere.
Vetumbuavi Mungunda, the bank's chief executive officer, had said although it was an odd time to list, the bank is going to operate for the long term and for that reason he said what the economy was going through now is just a cycle.
From the turnout, it appears investors were convinced by his talk amid the bank's high dependency on the property market, an alarmingly high non-performing loan ration, minimal digitisation and them not being engaged in the micro-lending market. This seemed not to ward off investors.
One would say the interest rested in the bank's loan book growth in these difficult times, a better earnings per share and solid parent company, Standard Bank SA.
The Namibian has reported that the market is flooded with too much money looking for investments, and the over-subscription of Standard Bank's shares confirms this.
According to PSG Wealth Namibia's analysis of the public offer results, the offer was oversubscribed 1,98 times.
Following the conclusion of the allocation from the public offer, Standard Bank is expected to list on the main board of the Namibian Stock Exchange (NSX) with a free float of 25,1%.
The NSX has approved the listing of all the issued ordinary shares of SBN Holdings (SNO), from 09h00 on Friday, 15 November 2019.
According to the public offering prospectus, the main purpose of the public offer was to allow selected applicants and members of the public to participate directly in the equity growth and income streams of SBN Holdings.
The public offer was also to allow Standard Bank to broaden Namibian ownership in the group, broaden Namibian previously disadvantaged individual's ownership in the group and to provide the liquidity mechanism to unlock value for the Purros Scheme (an employee share trust).
There are, however, talks that shareholders in the Purros Scheme might sell their shares after 31 December 2019.
