Stationery & Office Supplies was listed on the Junior Market of the Jamaica Stock Exchange on Thursday. 
The stock was offered to the public in mid-July at $2 each and was heavily oversubscribed, has bids to buy 98,660 units as high as $3.50 and 19,800 shares at $3.51.
No trade has taken place with 10,346 units being offered at $4.50, 10,000 units at $6 and 34,105 shares at $12 in the morning session.
Currently bids amount to buy more than 3.2 million units down to $2.50 up to $3.51. The stock exchange circuit breaker rule would restrict the maximum price the shares can trade at today at $2.60, and if it does not trade by the close, the maximum it can trade at on Friday would be $2.90. With bids at $3.50 and above currently, then it may not trade on Friday either if investors starts bids above $2.90 on Friday. Unless management intervene as they did for Express Catering it likely to be well into next week before the first trades would start.
Strong demand for SOS after listing
Neveast the next office supplies IPO
It was a big giveaway for those familiar with companies prepping for listing, by way of a pending initial public offer of shares. The Jamaica Observer newspaper on Wednesday, July 26, carried an advertisement for Neveast Supplies Limited, telling readers that they were celebrating 55 years of service to its customers.
The advertisement also stated that they were leader in stationery, office furniture and office supplies. In true Jamaican nationalistic style, the advert was rapped in the black, green and gold of the Jamaican flag, no doubt in synch with the 55 years of independence celebration this year.
Industry players say, they may be one of the biggest in stationery and office supplies but not of the office furniture and fixtures. Regardless, checks by this publication with persons knowledgeable about the company’s future plans, confirmed that they are likely to be the next stationery and office equipment to list on the Junior Market of the Stock Exchange. Recently, competitor Stationery and Office Supplies concluded a successful initial public offering of shares that were several times oversubscribed and are set to be the first to list when trading in the stock is expected to commence on August 9.
The brokers to the issue when it does take place, will be Mayberry Investments. Our sources state that they have been contemplating this move from at least 2016, but there are a few issues that need sorting out and should definitely be going to the market to raise capital and be listed before the end of 2017.
According to the company’s website, Neveast Supplies Limited is a family owned Jamaican company that started in 1962 when Founder, Neville East, decided to service the country’s stationery needs. Through market penetration and the help of his wife, Pamela, Neveast Supplies Limited expanded operations to include the supply of office and systems furniture.
Today, the second generation of Easts are at the company’s helm to oversee the daily operations. Sons, David, Paul and Gregory together with thirty-two other members of staff are devoted to the company’s success and ensure that Neveast remains the leader in office furniture and supplies with competitive prices on high quality products and efficient company service.
Neveast continues to be the authorized local distributor for international brands such as Teknion Inc, Global Upholstery Inc, MIN Office Furniture, Godrej, Aurora, Moderco, Virco, and a host of stationery manufacturers from across the globe. With its headquarters located in Kingston, the company’s distribution network covers the entire island of Jamaica and recently includes coverage in neighboring Caribbean countries.
IC Insider.com has been reliably informed that Mayberry Investments should be brokering another two public offers by the end of September and possibly a third by the end of 2017, while there are listings being worked on by other brokers.
Stationery Company to list early August
Stationery and Office Supplies that issued shares to the public on the 19th of July should be listed on the Junior Market of the Jamaica Stock Exchange on August 9, after the public holidays, subject to the listing committee meeting to approve same, IC Insider.com has been informed by a person close to the issue.
JN Fund Managers announced the method of allocation of the 52 million shares that were offered to the public. The issue attracted 1,216 applications for 241.722 million shares.
Shares allocated to SOS’ staff members were not applied for in full and resulted in 4,061,000 units being added to the general public pool with the staff picking up 8.439 million units.
The general public were all allotted the minimum of 5,000 units with the balance allocated on a pro rata basis taking into account the number of units applied for as a percentage of the total application pool in this category. JN Fund Managers’ clients were allotted up to 77,585 units of the shares applied for. Cheques for refunds should start going out as of Thursday, IC Insider.com was reliably informed.
Express Catering trading fiasco
Ian Dear, Managing Director of Express Catering
The Jamaica Stock Exchange indicated that the maximum price Express Catering could trade at on Friday was $1.86 which came about from a 15 percent average, of the price that triggered the circuit breaker which is $1.75 and the IPO price of $1.50.
Had the first trade, taken place at $1.95 it would have shut down trading in the stock for an hour, but that price would have stood, being 30 percent above the IPO price.
Regardless, investors placed a large number of bids to acquire the stock which was heavily oversubscribed, when the shares were issued to the public. The attached picture shows the bids above $2.20 at the close which are expected to be cancelled, with the closing bids limited to $2 which is the indicative starting price on Monday. That price will determine the maximum price the stock can trade at on Monday. Something must be wrong if investors can place orders into the system only to see them manually cancelled by the exchange after trading ends. This development is public relations and bad news for the exchange, but not many persons seem to care.
The circuit breaker rule put in place to try and prevent wild daily movements in a stock prices seems to have out lived its life. It is not working well with new listings as it is preventing orderly trading in most new listings in the early days of trading.
All the above orders amounting millions of shares in Express Catering will be cancelled after trading on Friday
According to an extract sent by the Jamaica Stock Exchange the Circuit Breaker Rule states that “No stock should trade +/-15% from the close price or the effective close price at the opening of the market. The effective close price is determined whenever the closing bid is greater than the close price or whenever the closing ask is less than the close price. Use the closing bid as the effective close price, if the value is greater than the close price or use the closing ask as the effective close price, if the value is less than the close price. However, during the day if the Circuit Breaker is triggered for a security, the trades at prices outside of the original prescribed band for the security will be disallowed for an hour to allow for the release of market news and a cool down period. The price of the trade that triggered the Circuit Breaker should not be +/-15% outside of the original prescribed price band. After the hour has passed the security will be released for trading within a new prescribed price band based on the new reference price, which is a simple average of the trigger price and the close price. The new reference price will be used to determine the trade range for the remainder of the day. The stock will not be allowed to trade +/- 15% of the new reference price.”
If it is were conceded that there is need for a daily price limit, the above rules have been made more complex than needs be the case. There is no logic in limiting one stock to trade at a 30 percent above the last traded price or indicative price and another to be limited to a lesser amount on the same day because an investor buys a stock at 30 percent above the prior days last price another at 15.1 percent above it which limits the trading for the rest of the day to less than 30 percent in the latter case. The new rules that were approved by the stock exchange in 2014 made no reference to a limit to the bid or offer that can be made during the day, exchange personnel have decided amongst themselves to improperly invoke the additional change that limits trading unnecessarily. The stock exchange should make good sense prevail and allow the above rules to be implemented fully as stated without the introduction of rules that the updated regulations do not include and from all indications were not signed off by the stock exchange council, went the change was submitted for approval. If that is done, it would remove the nonsense that now prevails in the Express Catering trading, with a huge line up of bids above $2 that are slated to be cancelled after trading today.
Over $487m chased Stationery company IPO
More than 1,000 investors are expected to have applied for shares in the latest initial public offer to hit Jamaica stock market.
Shares in office suppler, Stationery and Office Supplies which opened to the public for subscription today and closed at just after 9 am, just after opening has been heavily oversubscribed, IC Insider.com has confirmed.
Reports are that up to Tuesday, over 800 applications were received for the just over 50 million shares on offer at $2 each, but up to 11.30 am on Wednesday, the number of applications processed were already at 980 worth $450 million covering 225 million shares. In a release from the company, they stated that as of 12:00pm on Thursday, July 20, 2017, “the subscription was north of $487,000,000 from more than 1,000 applicants.
The Stationery and Office Supplies IPO is the third issue of ordinary shares to be offered to the market in July with all being oversubscribed. The shares are to be listed on the Junior Market of The Jamaica Stock Exchange.
Express Catering up 50c to $2
Express Catering started trading today with 102,100 shares trading at $2 to record a 33.33 percent gain of 50 cents over the initial public issue price of $1.50, if the price is allowed to stand.
The opening price for the stock is $1.75, under the stock exchange rules, the maximum price change increase for the day is limited to 30 percent from the issue price of $1.50 or 45 cents.
On the bid are 2.33 million units ranging in price from $1.50 to $2.15 with only one offer of 26,661 units posted on the stock exchange trading platform at a price of $2.75.
The company’s shareholders sold 327.5 million shares valued at $491,250,000 just over a week ago to the public.
The stock price movement has helped the Junior Market index in adding 21.56 points to trade at 2,962.79 at 11.40am.
Another miniscule IPO allocation
The general public ended up collecting a miniscule amount of shares in Express Catering recent public offering of shares with the first 12,000 shares being allocated in with the balance in excess allocated approximately 4.57 percent.
Mayberry Investments, brokers to Express Catering public issue, advised that a total of 1,270 applications valued at approximately $1,197,204,000 were received for 327.5 million shares valued at $491,250,000 that were on offer. Mayberry states that 1,237 applications valued at $634,599,000 were received for the public pool, approximately 13 times the value of $48,937,000 on offer in the public pool.
Shares allocated for Company Reserves Shares, Mayberry Reserved Shares and Key Partner Reserved applications were allocated in full. Mayberry states that “the company will endeavour to return refunds within 10 working days after the closing date.
Over US$5,500 shares for PBS investors
Investors in the recent public offer of Productive Business Solutions’ ordinary shares, will end up receiving the bulk of what they applied for, with the minimum of shares allocated worth the equivalent of J$700,000.
A release from the brokers for the issue, NCB Capital Markets, advised that the basis of allocation resulted in all the Reserve Shares allocated to Portland Private Equity Funds with full allotment up to US$15,000,000, the PBS Employees, will receive full allotment up to US$4,000,000 and subscribers from the general public will receive allotment up to US$5,500 and any amount in excess of this amount will be pro-rated. The release did not state the rate of pro-rating the balance.
The lowest amount allocated for full allocation is equivalents to 10,000 shares and would mean that applications from the general public would be over 450 applicants, coming from 4.55 million shares that were allocated to the general public. PBS therefore raised the full US$41.5 million offered from the issue of ordinary shares at 55 US cents each.
PBS reported revenues rose of US$42.45 million for the March 2017 quarter up from US$39.32 million in 2016, with profit rising to US$838,000 before taxation of US$389,000 from a loss the year before. According to the prospectus, the stock is slated to list on the Jamaica Stock Exchange main market and the Barbados Stock Exchange International market.
PBS & Express Catering over the top
NCB Capital Markets, brokers to the initial public offer of ordinary and preference shares for Productive Business Solutions which opened July 5, 2017 closed on Tuesday, July 11 for the Ordinary Shares at the price of US$0.55 per share.
The brokerage house, stated that the basis of allocation to be communicated later. The Invitation for subscription by the Company in respect of at a price of J$100 per share remains open and the public will be duly advised when same is closed. The original date for closure of both issues was set for July 26.
PBS issue was seeking to raise US$41.5 million by ordinary shares, with US$8.7 million of it to be used to International Finance Corporation. The IPO also includes 25,800,000 9.75% Redeemable Cumulative Preference Shares denominated in Jamaican dollars. The issue allocated 27,272,727 of the ordinary shares for Portland JSX, 7,272,727 units for staff with 4,545,455 shares for the General Public.
Part of the proceeds will be used to paid debt of US$17.45 million and working capital of US$13.85 million.
Ian Dear, Managing Director of Express Catering
For the year to December 2016, a loss of US$3.3 million was incurred down from a profit of $1.2 million in 2015. Revenues fell in both years to $171 million in 2016 from $194 million in 2015 and $202 million in 2014 when a small loss was incurred. Finance cost in 2016 increased by $2.6 million. The increase is attributed primarily to interest associated with the increase in debt of $998,000, FX loss of $920,000, and amortization of deferred expenses associated with the bond of $724,000. In the March 2017 quarter revenues rose to US$42.45 million from US$39.32 million with profit rising to US$838,000 before taxation of US$389,000 from a loss the year before.
PBS has borrowings of US$66 million with US$10 million due to related parties as at December 2016. The prospectus indicates that the shares are to be listed on the main market of the Jamaica Stock Exchange and on Barbados Stock Exchange’s International Securities Market, subsequent to listing in Jamaica.
Reports reaching IC Insider.com is that Express Catering was oversubscribed with the issue closing this morning as more than 1,000 applications were received by the broker for the issue, Mayberry Investments. The 100 percent Shareholder of Express Catering, Margaritaville St Lucia, offered 327,500,000 of existing shares for sale at $1.50 each, to raise approximately $490 million. Only 32.6 million shares were made available to the general public. The Stock is slated for listing on the Junior Market.
SOS solidly BUY RATED
Stationery and Office Supplies reported earnings of 26 cents per share for 2016 and IC Insider.com forecast 40 cents pretax for the current year from just over $90 million in pretax profit, a near doubling in profits over the $53 million reported in 2016.
Revenues increased 11 percent in 2013, just 5 percent in next year, 14 percent in 2015 and 12 percent in 2016 and 20 percent for the first six months of 2017, hitting $702 million in 2016 and seems on target to get to around $850 million for 2017.
Pre-tax Profit in 2016, pre-tax profits jumped 279.5 percent to end at $53 million compared to only $14 million in 2015, and $8 million in 2014.
Improvement in the Company’s revenues has been attributable to organic expansion driven by the achievement of deeper penetration in the market for the Company’s products and services but inflation and devaluation of the Jamaican dollar versus the United States currency would also play roles. Improved profit and cash flow generated in the last two years helped to fund increased inventory making more choices available to customers and that is reflected in a noticeable pick-up in sales. The Company has expanded its product offerings, adding to the list of brands it distributes and venturing into manufacturing its own brands of furniture – Image and Torch.
Gross profit as a percentage of sales was a strong 48 percent in 2016, coming from 43 percent in 2015 and 44.55 percent in 2014. Lower cost of sales led to an improved gross profit position of $339 million in 2016, which 26.09 percent increase over that earned in 2015 and 10 percent more in 2015 over 2014.
As at the 31 March 2017, SOS reported first quarter revenues of $220 million, 20.7 percent more than the $182 million reported in the corresponding period for 2016. Cost of sales as a proportion of revenue remained in line with the FY 2016 representing 50.66 percent of total revenue; this percentage was however slightly higher than the 48.75 percent for all of 2016. The company reported pretax profits of $30 million compared to $29.5 million in Q1 2016. A number of factors impacted the 2016 results that resulted in higher profits than would normally be the case as such the 2017 profit are better than the figures suggest. In effect the 2016 first quarter could be around $20 million from normal ongoing operation.
Gross profit for the three month period ended 31 March 2017 was $108.64 million or 16.2 percent more than the $93 million reported in 2016. SOS also reported an increase in administrative costs of 21 percent to $53 million and selling expenses climbed 37.5 percent to $18 million.
Total assets were valued at J$498 million at the March this year comprising current assets of $243 million. Inventories stood at $117 million, receivables $93 million and cash of J$12 million. Total liabilities amounted to J$231 million, with trade and other payables of J$78 million. Shareholders equity stood at $270 million or $1.35 per share.
The company will benefit greatly from listing and sales to climb above recent levels form the increased exposure that will be gained from listing on an ongoing basis as well as the increased working capital that will provide additional choices for customers and help fuel increased sales. IC Insider.com accords the stock BUY RATED with the price to rise sharply after the stock list.
