MPC Caribbean Clean Energy ltd is a Caribbean-based investment company set to be the next Initial Public offer in Jamaica and Trinidad simultaneously in early December.
The company is being sponsored by German based MPC Capital that is publicly listed since 2000 with a market capitalization of €158 million.
Trinidad regulators have already signed off on the prospectus while the draft prospectus is now going through the FSC in Jamaica, Martin Vogt, managing director of MPC capital advised IC insider.com.
The company was established in 2017 with the clear vision to invest in renewable energy projects in Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago and the wider Caribbean region through the MPC Caribbean Clean Energy Fund LLC. The listed company will be just an investing vehicle, with capital raised to be invested through MPC Caribbean Clean Energy Fund LLC, the entity investing directly in the projects.
The company will seek to raise at least US$50 million in the Jamaican and Trinidad markets with the IPO expected to debut around the first week in December. Brokers for the issue are JN Fund Managers.
The Company is registered in Barbados and was established by the clean energy investment specialist MPC Renewable Energies (MPC), a 100% subsidiary of the publicly listed German asset and investment manager MPC Capital, based on its extensive renewable energy experience worldwide and after research and analysis of the Caribbean market.
JPS has signed an agreement to purchase power from the company at 8.5 US cents per KWH.
The initial investment in Jamaica is “Paradise Park”, a 50 MW solar park in Westmoreland with a capital outlay of US$64 million. Once completed by May 2019, the solar park will be the largest photovoltaic power plant in the island. Vogt told IC Insider.com that they have a 20 years power supply contract with JPS. The company also has a 21 MW wind power plant in Costa Rica that has been in operations since 2015 and is profitable. Importantly, the Jamaican operation which is now being built out will have a rated capacity of 50 MWH.
The plan is to raise around US$200 million for investment in the region’s renewables. According Vogt, the Jamaican government is expected to open the market in 2019 for bids for 150 MW renewable supply and the company is planning to bid for another 50 MW to add to the Paradise Park operation. If the bid is successful the expansion will result in some amount of economy of scale in the operation.
The is likely to invest in the Wigton Wind Farm when that company goes public in the first quarter of 2019.
The rate of return for the company is expected to be north of 9 percent per annum which will make it attractive for investors looking for income but payment of dividend may not be more than once per year initially.
The stock issue is likely to be a relatively high income generator, rather than one for rapid stock price gains. shares will be sold in Jamaica in local dollars but in Trinidad they will be in US dollars.
News reaching IC Insider.com is that Fantana Pharmacy should be heading to the market soon, to raise around $500 million to help fund the new location on Waterloo Road in Kingston. A few others are said to be planned for next year with IC insider.com gathering that at least two are in the manufacturing sector and one in the financial sector.
Fontana another IPO another set of errors
This is an unfortunate development for yet another issue, that seems very attractively priced. The directors have all signed off on the document that has gone through the Financial Services Commission, the Jamaica Stock Exchange and the Company Office of Jamaica, so why the errors and important ommission.
The introduction in the prospectus speaks to a price of $1.88 except for reserved shares at $1.69 but later on in the body of the document it speaks to a price of $2 for each share, making it unclear exactly what the price really should be? In the interim results to September, there are two issues, one is an error and the other, information that really needs clarification. The interim cash flow has no profit, nor depreciation and it therefore is not balanced and needs correcting.
The gross profit in the interim results jumped sharply,even as revenues grew just 5.5 percent with inventories are up 19 percent at the end of the quarter over 2017 and 15.5 percent over June this year. Why the big jump in inventories with sales are just rising moderately? Importantly, this raises questions about the accuracy of the inventory levels and the gross profit margin for 2018. Management should explain the sharp changes in this area so that investors can better understand why there is such a sharp jump in the quarterly profit.
This publication finds it difficult to once more raising issues relating to a prospectus. We are concerned that enough care is not going into them. The breach of GWest Corporation relating to the non-disclosure of information relating to an extraordinary meeting that was said to approve the issue of preference shares that was never brought to investors’ attention is fresh and has not been properly dealt by the regulators or the company. The regulators seem to have turned a blind eye to it. We need to raise the standards if the capital market integrity is the be enhanced.