Photographer: Ismail Ferdous / Bloomberg
Photographer: Ismail Ferdous / Bloomberg
Robi Axiata Limited, the Bangladesh unit of Malaysia’s largest revenue-traded telecommunications company, entered for the first time after local investors sought 5.7 times more shares than offered at the first public tender.
Shares rose 50% to 15 taka at 10:12 am according to data on the Dhaka Stock Exchange website. Robi, a campaign between Malaysia’s Axiata Group Bhd. And India Bharti raised Airtel Ltd., 5.24 billion taka ($ 62 million) in the first sale of shares. The company sold about 524 million or 10% of the company.
Bangladeshi’s biggest IPO in a decade has led to the shares being cited locally, with investors joining a frenzy for the sale of original shares worldwide. More than 70 foreign companies went public in the U.S. this year, raising more than $ 21 billion – mostly since 2014, and in nearby India, shares of companies such as Burger King India Limited has more than doubled in first time.
“Local investors are very active in the market at the moment and I would not be surprised to see them drive up share prices in the short term,” said Mattias Martinsson, chief investment officer of Tundra Fonder AB in Stockholm. “In the long term, it is positive to increase the number of well-known lists of names for international investors. ”
The money will help Robi grow his network in a country whose Asian Development Bank forecasts are expanding 6.8%, the fastest rate in the region, for the current fiscal year. Robi’s IPO is the largest from the sales of power company MJL Bangladesh Ltd. shares in 2011.
For network expansion, Robi received a $ 95 million loan from the International Finance Association.