Last year (2017), was a great year for Jamaican stocks with prices of several stocks more than doubling on the Jamaican Stock Exchange and 10 new companies listing on the exchange.
2018 seems poised to be another year for a number of new issues on the market as business owners take advantage of a buoyant market for equity investments.
The local market should have new 9 issues, Marlene Streete-Forrest, the JSE Managing Director confirmed. Streete-Forrest expects that 5 issues will list on the Junior Market and 4 for the main market. New financial entity Sygnus Capital is said to be heading to the public in January. Other listings expected shortly are Caribbean Insurance Brokers, NevEast and Elite Diagnostics. University College of the Caribbean with its main operations in Kingston, Jamaica, is expected to be the first educational institution to seek to list on the stock exchange. The listing is expected to take place in the first quarter of 2018. Mayberry Investment is also expected to bring their subsidiary, Mayberry West Indies to market by February.
In 2017, the Jamaica Stock Exchange had 10 new companies listing on the exchange, including 2 new companies listing preference shares. Two new listings were on the main market one on the US dollar market and 5 on the Junior Market.
Scotia Investments, Trinidad Cement, Montego Bay Ice and Margaritaville preference share were delisted during the year.
9 new IPOs for 2018
Over 1,000 applicants push FosRich IPO over
Mark Croskery Managing director of Stocks & Securities brokers fro teh IPO speaking to Cecil Foster, Managing director of FosRich.
Stocks and Securities advised the Jamaica Stock Exchange that the “Invitation for Subscription” in the Initial Public Offering for FosRich Company Limited is “Now Oversubscribed and Closed”. The Offer closed at 9:01 am today after its official opening this morning.
Reports reaching IC Insider.com is that applications for the issue exceeds 1,000, with more than $350 million accounted for so far, with the full amount still be counted up to late Monday evening.
The company went to market to raise $200 million from sale of just over 100 million shares at $2 each. The general public were allocated just 10,070,111 units, Stocks and Securities, brokers for the IPO was allocated 50 million units and key partners and staff shares has 40,385,000 allocated to them. At this stage it is unknown if any shares from the reserves allocations were not taken up and therefore became available to boost the minuscule amount allocated for the general public.
If the general pool is not boosted by much than the general public will end up only a very small sum.
FosRich is one of five IPO issues coming to market in December as VM Investments announced their issue and released the prospectus to sell 300 million shares up to $2.45 each and Elite Diagnostics is expected to issue their prospectus this week, while Wisynco and GWest both officially opens for subscription this week.
Elite Diagnostics IPO Decemder 7
Information reaching IC Insider.com, is that the initial public offer for ELITE DIAGNOSTICS could come to market on 7th December 2017.
The 5 year old company provides imaging and Diagnostic Medical Facility offers services such as MRI, CT Scan, X-Ray, Ultrasound and Fluoroscopy. The Issue is expected to raise $160 million at approximately $2 per share with the shares to be listed on the Junior Market of the Jamaica Stock Exchange.
The proceeds from the offer will be used for expansion of the business. The company operates from Holburn Road in Kingston and now has a new office on Hope Road.
If the issue comes in as stipulated, it will make for 5 new issues officially on the market at the same time. If the issue is successful, it would raise the listings on the Junior Market to 38 assuming the FosRich offer is successful, with 34 of them being ordinary shares.
Other issues expected are, Wisynco and VM Investments that are heading to the main market of the Jamaica Stock Exchange and GWest for the Junior Market.
VMBS Wealth heading to market
VM Wealth planning to list soon..
There was a time when there was a drought of listings on the Jamaica Stock Exchange with the advent of the Junior Market and its success there seem to be information on coming listings cropping up regularly.
Word reaching IC Insider.com is the VMBS Wealth Management will head to market in early 2018 to be listed on the exchange. Contacts make by this publication was wet with the response that they could not respond on such matters at this time.
For 2017 the stock exchange had confirmed about 16 potential listings for the year, inclusive of preference shares. The year will definitely close short of the target, but between December and the end of 2018 is setting up to be a bumper period that increase the listings to more than 100 for the very first time.
FosRich offer will open officially on December 4 to raise just over $200 million and is brokered by Stocks and Securities who confirmed that they are working on another listing but could not release the name of the company.
With Elite Diagnostics reconfirming their intention to go to market soon, the number of potential listings are climbing. Wisynco Group is expected to release its prospectus shortly with whispers suggesting by this week end.
More trading activity is expected in the future as a results of new listing and the impact of the fall in interest rates will have on trading activities. The exchange now has 92 listings with a few duplicated ones in the main market and US dollar market will see and there could be four on the exchange suggest before the year ends with three of them regarded as definite. Brokers say they are working on 8 new ones for 2018 currently, Marlene Street Forrest, Managing Director of the Jamaica Stock Exchange advised IC Insider.com.
The three are expected to be GWest, a medical complex out of Montego Bay, is expected to raise over $400 million, the company income will come from a combination of rent from the major part of the complex and fees from operating small short term medical facility. The complex currently has a number of blue chip clients as tenants.
NCB Capital Markets Manager, Origination and Structuring Stanley Thompson (left) exchanges laughs with Wisynco Group Limited Chairman William Mahfood also sharing are Wisynco Chief Executive Officer Andrew Mahfood and PriceWaterhouseCoopers Director Fiona Hyman
Wisynco Group is looking to raise for itself $1 billion but some of its current shareholders wanting to cash out. Information suggests that shares are to be offered to a wide array of persons including the 700 staff members as well as a large number of customers hence the shares from the IPO could be pretty scarce. Caribbean Insurance Brokers being handled by Mayberry Investments is the fourth possible 2017 listings. Mayberry is also working with Neveast Supplies but this seems to be a 2018 listing.
Others that should see their ordinary shares listed on the Jamaica Stock Exchange, include Jamaica Plumbing and Supplies, the government’s owned Wighton Wind Farms, Jamaica Public Service Company, with the government wanting to dispose of its shares in the power company, KIW International that has taken the decision to have the company relisted. UCC Online, a segment of University of the Caribbean was expected to have gone to the market this year but have been ironing out issues to facilitate the initial public offering, they could be ready in 2018 and Sygnus Capital Investments should list in the first quarter of 2018 on the main market of the exchange. Sygnus is relatively new company established to undertake loans or make medium term investments in medium size businesses. The company which is registered in St Lucia is managed by Sygnus Capital Management a Cayman Island based corporation. The company raised US$15 million in capital and is aiming for another $5 million when they come to market, which could be as early as January next year. According to our source they have so far lent out US$11 million and generated a higher rate of return that originally expected. The company has a good stream of potential users of its funds.
