Odel IPO makes debut on July 5

Charumini DE SILVA

Odel will open its Rs 250.5 million Initial Public Offering (IPO) on July 5, becoming Sri Lanka’s first fashion retailer to be listed on the Diri Savi Board of the Colombo Stock Exchange (CSE).

The IPO issuing 16.7 million shares at Rs 15 will be up for subscription from June 22 whilst Odel is being advised on the listing by CT Capital, which is also the lead manager to the IPO.

From left: CT Capital Director, Channa Amaratunga, Odel CEO Otara Gunewardene and Odel Group CEO Nishan Fernando at the press conference. Picture by Saliya Rupasinghe.

The timing was perfect to enter into the capital market with the post-war resurgence in the country and the economy, along with a highly active stock market, Odel CEO Otara Gunewardene told, a press conference yesterday.

She said the company expects to expand its local consumer base to 60 percent while the balance to be foreign clientele. As the tourism sector is also picking up it will also benefit the company. We have a foreign clientele of Europe, India, Middle East and China, but it differs time to time and we have a mixture of our foreign clientele. Hosting of various international events has also benefitted the market immensely, she said.

Seeing the potential to be expanded islandwide, Odel at present is only focusing in the mid upper local market while maintaining the brand, quality and standards mainly in the Western province.

“It is not that we are only setting up branches, but they should also perform well. At present all the outlets are performing well beyond expectations”, Gunewardene said.

CT Capital Director Channa Amaratunga said there is tremendous interest in Odel’s IPO. The 16.7 million shares are to be distributed among the three board investor categories of employees (1.2 million shares), retail investors (3 million shares) and non-retail investors (12.5 million shares).

Applications can be made for a minimum of 100 shares or in multiples of 100 and for the purpose of allotment, public applications for up to 5,000 shares will be categorized as retail and applications lager block as non-retail so as to minimize the chance of smaller investor being crowded out.

He said Odel is geared to make a significant increase in the revenues and profit margins.