January 26, 2006	Thursday	Zilhaj 25, 1426

KARACHI, Jan 25: Subscribers to the Initial Public Offering (IPO) of Bank of Khyber (BoK) are facing difficulty in submission of application due to a limited number of bankers to the issue.

BoK is the first security this year to make an initial public offering (IPO) and the 21st bank to be listed at the bourses.

The bank is offering 41.1m shares at the par value of Rs10 to the general public at a premium of Rs5 per share. The IPO, opened on Wednesday, and would close at the end of banking hours on Friday. The Bank’s stock has already started trading on the provisional counter at around Rs35 per share.

Small investors who require a small sum of Rs7,500 for making an offer for 500 shares are flocking to the banks. The following are the eight bankers to the issue First Dawood Investment Bank; HBL; MCB; Metropolitan Bank; NBP; PICIC Commercial Bank; BoK and UBL.

Investors not having account in banks to the issue had in some previous IPOs availed the option of filing a certified bank draft/ pay order drawn from any other bank, along with the application and ID card to the bankers to the issue. While some of the banks are accepting such pay orders, some small investors have complained of a few banks that decline acceptance.