KARACHI: Technology company Supernet Ltd raised Rs475 million in the book-building process on the Growth Enterprise Market (GEM) board of the Pakistan Stock Exchange on Wednesday.

The offer was oversubscribed 1.4 times while the strike price remained Rs22.50 a share, which was also the floor price, a company statement said.

The first-ever GEM listing of a technology company received encouraging response from institutional investors, Roshan Digital account-holders, foreign institutions and high net worth individuals.

The issue consisted of 21.1m ordinary shares representing 18.81 per cent of the total post-listing shareholding.

The entire issue was offered through book-building at a floor price that included a premium of Rs12.50 per share.

“This offering will help revive new listings on the PSX. There is a lot of demand for tech stocks and that is why we saw higher-than-anticipated bids in book building of Supernet Ltd,” said Mohammed Sohail, CEO of Topline Securities, which served as advisor and book-runner to the issue.

Telecom sector demands consistency in policies

The telecom industry has called upon the government to ensure consistency in policies to protect the investment plans and maintain the business viability for growth in technology and infrastructure.

While announcing the financial result on Wednesday in Islamabad, PTCL Group Chief Financial Officer Nadeem Khan said the withholding tax has to be reduced to 8.5 per cent in the upcoming budget as per the policy announced by the PTI government in the budget 2021-22.

“The PTI government had announced to reduce the withholding tax (WHT) on mobile phone calls in June 2021, but later the decision was reversed when the mini-budget was announced in December 2021,” Mr Khan said.

Published in Dawn, April 14th, 2022