Century signs listing agreement with NEPSE; trading to start on June 8

ShareSansar, May 30:

The long wait is finally over those who had applied for the Initial Public Offering (IPO) of Century Commercial Bank Limited.

The bank today signed an agreement with Nepal Stock Exchange Limited (NEPSE) to list its primary shares.

“Though we were planning to sign the listing agreement next week, we expedited the process since some of the officials are going out of the station next week,” a highly placed source with Civil Capital Markets, the issue manager, told ShareSansar. “The IPO shares will be traded from next Sunday (from June 8.)”

As Century's net worth by the third quarter ending stands at Rs 110.07, the price band for the debut of the IPO is Rs 110.07 to Rs 330.21. 

Century Commercial Bank Limited has started distributing its primary share certificates from May 11.

Since more than 151 thousand share certificates had to be manually signed by Century’s company secretary and a director, the process took a little more time than usual, according to Civil Capital’s officials.

Earlier this month the bank officials had applied with the SEBON for the approval to list the shares.

According to the law governing share listing, the company must distribute at least 50 percent of the primary shares to the shareholders before it could be listed at NEPSE for trading.

It may also be noted that Century has already Civil Capital as its RTS.
After allotting the Initial Public Offering (IPO) worth Rs 92 crore, Century had started distributing allotment slips and refund the non-allottees in March.

The IPO was allotted on March 4 at the head office of the commercial bank in Kathmandu at 7.90 percent to retail investors who had applied up to Rs 50,000 and 3.09 percent to big investors.

However, those who had applied for up to Rs 12,000 had fallen under lottery.
The IPO, which was issued from January 9 to January 13, was oversubscribed by 24.48 times.

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.