Century starts distributing IPO certificates; trading expected in two weeks

ShareSansar, May 11:

Century Commercial Bank Limited has started distributing its primary share certificates from today, according to Civil Capital, which is managing the IPO.

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.

The bank officials told ShareSansar today that they have already applied with the SEBON for the approval to list the shares, and are planning to get the shares listed by the second week of Jestha.

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 Nepal Stock Exchange Limited (NEPSE) for trading.

Likewise, Century is also yet to appoint its RTS, without which the share cannot be traded.

“We will finalize the RTS within a week, and we expect to get the share listed within 15 days,” Century Bank’s company secretary Jeevan Bhattarai informed.

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.