Access Engineering IPO announces share allotment basis

Access Engineering Limited announced the basis of allotment of its Rs. 500 million IPO, which was oversubscribed within few hours of its opening on 6 March 2012.

According to the basis of allotment, all the retail investors and the investors who applied up to Rs. 10 million (400,000 shares) under the non-retail investor category were allotted 100% of the shares applied.

Access Engineering raised Rs. 4.5 billion in June 2011 through an issue of shares where the minimum investment was Rs. 10 million and with the allotment at the IPO, the company has been able to cater to small investors as well as high net worth investors in a fair manner.

Investors who applied for shares above 400,000 and up to and inclusive of 1,000,000 were allotted 90.53% of the shares applied whilst all other investors who applied for more than 1,000,000 shares were allotted 1,000,000 shares each.

“The maximum limit on allotment for large investors was with a view to broad base our shareholding through full allotment being given to small and medium scale investors, since large investors at the Private Placement got the full allotment in accordance with the shares they applied for,” Chairman of Access Engineering Sumal Perera said.

Based on the Stock Exchange filing, 942 investors have applied for 30,644,400 shares at the IPO and 802 investors under the retail investor category were allotted 909,200 shares whilst the balance 19,090,800 shares were allotted to the investors who had applied under the non-retail investor category.

The shares of the company are expected to be listed on the Colombo Bourse towards the end of March 2012.

The company raised Rs. 500 million through the issue of 20 million ordinary voting shares to the public at Rs. 25 each, amounting to a 2% stake of the company, post IPO. The theme of the IPO ‘A New Hope’ created much hype, excitement and enthusiasm by the general public, high net worth individuals and foreign investors, resulting in the offer being oversubscribed within few hours of its opening.

The funds raised will be used to partly finance the working capital requirements of a housing project to the value of Rs. 3 billion undertaken by the company on behalf of UDA. Access Engineering is now the first construction company pioneered by Sri Lankan entrepreneurs to be listed on the Colombo Stock Exchange (CSE) and would be within the top 20 corporates listed in terms of market capitalization at the share issue price of Rs. 25 per share.

Established in 2001, Access Engineering Limited has established itself as a leading construction company offering innovative value engineering solutions comprising design, procurement, construction and commissioning of numerous multi disciplinary engineering projects for both the Government and the private sector of Sri Lanka.

Over this short span of existence, Access Engineering has carved out a name and stature for itself in the construction and engineering sector of the country which has resulted in the company seeing continuous unprecedented growth while leveraging proficiency and competencies it possesses to generate value for its stakeholders.  It has also in its short period of existence, won many construction industry and national business excellence awards.