KARACHI, Dec 18: The Karachi Stock Exchange has approved the provisional listing of cable Internet firm Worldcall Broadband Ltd. — the sixth company to be listed this year.

The KSE said the provisional listing would take place on December 29, the day the company issues its prospectus in line with listing regulations. Formal listing is planned on February 16, 2004.

The initial public offering is expected to be valued at Rs285 million, while separately it plans to raise Rs15 million from its employees, corporate sources said.

The public subscription is expected in early January. The company has already raised Rs1.2 billion from mostly financial institutions from a pre-IPO offering. The sponsors, Worldcall Communications Group, have invested Rs460 million at the pre-IPO stage.

“Recent IPOs have been very successful therefore we expect this issue to be well received in the market,” said Tanvir Abid, head of research at Jahangir Siddiqui Capital Markets.

He said the market has a huge appetite for technology firms, citing the example of the country’s first technology share, Resource Group, a call centre company which was more than five times oversubscribed in April.—Dow Jones Newswires