The $146m IPO of Cooperative Bank, Kenya’s fourth largest bank in terms of assets, remained on track this week as lead manager Dyer and Blair Investment presented a listing application to the Capital Markets Authority (CMA).
"We hope that after presenting the information memorandum to the regulators we will have a quick response so that we can go to the market before the end of the year," said Co-op Bank’s managing director Gideon Muriuki.
If the CMA approves the deal, the IPO will come to market in November.
Muriuki said the cash raised will be used to finance the bank’s mortgage products, to restore the communication infrastructure and to fund the expansion of the branch network.
Co-op Bank has hired 150 employees for an IPO processing centre it has set up in Nairobi.
The bank announced a 50% rise in its half-year pre-tax profit, which stood at Ksh1.7bn ($25million), and aims to raise the figure to Ksh3.2bn by year end. Last year, Co-op’s pre-tax profit was Ksh2.32bn.
The IPO will be the country’s second largest after the $849m IPO of mobile phone operator Safaricom in April, which marked a new high point for African equity issuance.
Safaricom’s IPO was five times oversubscribed despite Kenya being engulfed in a political crisis for much of the marketing period.
ITALY
The board of directors of defence company Finmeccanica agreed to implement the mandate for a rights issue, aiming to raise up to Eu1.4bn. The decision makes it likely that a deal will come to market this year.
No banks have been nominated for the transaction, and details of the deal will be determined by a board meeting.
The capital raising is part of the group’s overall financing of the Eu3.4bn acquisition of US defence company DRS Technologies in May.
Lehman Brothers was advising Finmeccanica on the DRS acquisition.
NETHERLANDS
Renewable energy company Econcern has announced plans to list on Euronext Amsterdam within three to five years.
The company aims to achieve net profit of Eu1bn on sales of Eu8bn by 2012 compared with earnings this year of Eu100m on turnover of Eu800m.
Rabobank, financial services group Delta Lloyds and Dutch energy group SHV own 50% of the company, with the remainder held by staff.
SPAIN
Spanish pharmaceutical company Zeltia is still planning a stockmarket listing for its subsidiary Neuropharma once market conditions improve.
"We’re currently in talks with investment banks to sound out the market climate," said Zeltia’s chairman José María Fernández.
Zeltia said it had changed the name of Neuropharma to Noscira ahead of the planned listing.
Neurpharma develops drugs to treat diseases of the nervous system. It is set to begin phase II trials on its Alzheimer drug in the fourth quarter of 2008.