Bartleet TransCapital to broadbase ownership with private placement

Bartleet TransCapital Limited (BTL), the Bartleet Group's financial services conglomerate is offering its customers and employees an opportunity to take a stake in the company through a private placement.

The company is offering a placement of 7.5 million ordinary shares of Rs. 10 per share, with a premium of Rs 10 which is a discounted price considering the potential and the value of the companies in the group, in a move to broadbase its ownership.

This would represent BTL's first step towards its objective of taking capital-related activities to a new paradigm and across national borders, the company's CEO Indrajith Fernando said.

"We are now in the process of streamlining operations to exploit the growing opportunities in the financial services sector," he said.

"The purpose of this issue is to provide stakeholders, especially employees and customers an opportunity to participate in the ownership of the company and benefit from the prospective growth of the financial services sector companies of BTL," Fernando added.

The proceeds of this placement would be used as seed capital to integrate the existing business and to contribute towards the development of new service offerings based on the synergies of the integrated business.

The private placement will result in an increase in the company's total share capital to Rs 675 million. The company has an authorised share capital of Rs 1.5 billion. The company also plans to further broadbase its ownership by an initial public offering within the next two to three years. The proceeds raised will be used to exploit the growing opportunities in the financial services sector. The company also plans to seek a listing on the Colombo Stock Exchange within the next three years.

BTL is the holding company of four of the financial sector companies Bartleet Financial Services Limited, Bartleet Mallory Stockbrokers Limited, Ceylon Asset Management Company and Bartleet Asset Management.

Several companies in the Group have reported healthy results for the first half of 2005 with some of them achieving record turnover and profit growth.