KARACHI: Matco Foods Ltd (MFL) on Wednesday announced the closing of the book-building process of its initial public offering (IPO) making it the first IPO of the year from a local agri-business.

A total offer of 30.42 million shares was made against the offer size of 29.14m ordinary shares, at a strike price of Rs26 per share. The gross proceeds to the company from the IPO amounted to Rs757m before deducting underwriting discounts, commissions and offering expenses.

The successful bidders will be provisionally allotted 75 per cent of the issue size ie 21.86m shares while the remaining 25pc ie 7.29m will be offered to retail investors and the general public at Rs26 per share, said a company announcement.

In case the retail and general portion of the issue remains unsubscribed, the shares will be allotted back to the successful bidders on a pro rata basis. The public subscription is scheduled on Jan 29-30. MCB Bank acted as the book-running manager while Arif Habib Ltd was consultant to the IPO.

The company expects to use the net proceeds from the IPO for the expansion of its rice glucose and protein plant from 10,000 tonnes of glucose and 1,000 tonnes of protein per annum to 30,000 tonnes of glucose and 3,000 tonnes of protein respectively.

Published in Dawn, January 25th, 2018