Textured Jersey, Softlogic, Access in the fray:
New IPOs evince foreign investor interests
Free Lanka share debuts at Rs 5.50, 89 m shares
traded:
Ravi Ladduwahetty
Foreigners net sellers
The bourse opened for the week after the three-day New Year holiday
on a negative note with both indices recording marginal losses.
The market saw an upward movement in the morning session and ended in
red with ASI losing 27.07 points to close at 7,547.79 while more
sensitive MPI closed at 7,038.70, a dip of 25.55 points. Daily market
turnover was Rs 2.4 billion.
Meanwhile, the SEC imposed a 10 percent price band on Alufab. The
price band will be removed on May 5. Alufab closed at Rs 99.90, up by Rs
23.30 (+30.4 percent). Foreign participation picked up from low levels
and accounted for 19.9 percent of the total market activity. At the end
of the day foreigners were net sellers with a net foreign outflow of Rs
723.1 million. Lanka Securities Research
The Initial Public Offerings of Textured Jersey (a Brandix Group
member), Softlogic and Access along with those of the Finance Companies
which are expected to be held later this year, are not only evince of
foreign investor interests but expected to bolster the Colombo Stock
Market, market analysts told Daily News Business yesterday.
Private placements of these companies that have preceded the IPOs
will not only boost the market in terms of market capitalization but
there will be foreign interest subject to the basis of the valuation of
these companies and the IPOs, they said.
There has not been any major foreign investors or big names in the
recent past but depending on the valuation of these companies, there is
a strong likelihood in that direction, they said.
Meanwhile, the Free Lanka Trading shares made its debut in the
Colombo Stock Exchange yesterday opening at Rs 5.50 and closed at Rs
5.70 where the high for the day was Rs 7.00 and low for the day was Rs
5.50.
The volume traded was 89.3 million shares at an average price of Rs
5.9 where the turnover was Rs 524 million. There was also one crossing
of 5.3 million shares at Rs 7 where only one trade took place at Rs 7
for the day - another major trade of 4.7 million shares at Rs 5.8
million.
A total of 300 million shares were offered to the public at Rs 5.00
per share on March 17 and the pre-IPO sell down private placement had
taken place in late last year at Rs 4.70 per share.
The Colombo Market opened positively after the New Year, but lost its
steam midway. Analysts say few selected illiquid shares were targeted
and the index was allowed to show positive.
The day’s revenue were made out of NDB Rs 699 million, Free Lanka
Trading- Rs 514 million and Central Finance Rs 255.5 million.
They also said the sentiments of the market were good prior to the
New Year and that it would rise after the holidays but the market
revolved a round Free Lanka Trading share which was retail driven and
also on the shares of Central Finance and NDB which were driven by high
net worth investors and foreign parties.
Free Lanka did not attract much hype to the market due to the current
volatility in the international and local commodity markets.
Industry Analysts believe that the IPO market was overpriced.
And also few of the promoters have sold out before the IPO.
Market anticipated that the same will sell further in the IPO market. |