Century Commercial Bank IPO expected to be oversubscribed by 18 times

Tue, Jan 14, 2014 12:00 AM on IPO/FPO News,

ShareSansar, January 14:

The Initial Public Offering (IPO) worth Rs 92 crore issued by Century Commercial Bank Limited is likely to oversubscribed by 18 times if the latest information being compiled by the issue managers is anything to go by.

“The updated figure for the first three days of the collection of Century IPO stands at Rs 7.38 arba,” the official designated by the issue managers to compile the IPO application told ShareSansar today. “Considering this trend, we are upgrading our estimate for the oversubscription to 18 times as we are most likely to collect not less than Rs 15 arba.”

However, the final figure will start to come only by Friday.

The IPO, which was issued from January 9,  had closed yesterday.

Long serpentine queues could be seen in front of all the collection centers on the closing day of the IP0.

Century’s IPO was one of the most expected events in the stock market not just because of its sheer volume but also because it is the last IPO to be issued by any commercial bank of the country.

Nepal Rastra Bank has stopped issuing license to the commercial bank, and, on the contrary, has been directing the commercial banks and other BFIs to seek merger.

The offering was also special in that it was the largest IPO to be issued by any private bank in the country, second only to primary shares worth Rs 96 crore floated by Agriculture Development Bank Limited.

ICRA Nepal had assigned an ‘[ICRANP] IPO Grade 4+’ to Century Bank’s IPO, which is not at all bad by any standards.

Following the IPO, the commercial bank’s paid-up capital of Rs 1.08 billion will rise to Rs two billion, as per the regulatory requirement.

It may be noted that there was a huge response to the IPOs issued by three commercial banks — Civil Bank, Commerz and Trust Bank Nepal and Mega Bank—had issued their IPO over the last one year.

Civil Bank’s IPO was oversubscribed by seven times, Commerz and Trust’s IPO was oversubscribed by 11 times and Mega Bank’s IPO was oversubscribed by 22 times.