Softlogic oversubscribed within minutes of market opening

Softlogic, billed as the country’s biggest-ever IPO in six years, was oversubscribed within minutes of the market opening for trading yesterday.

Registrars to the issue PW Corporate Secretarial told Daily FT that processing of applications was still ongoing and that statistics could not be revealed.

Most of the applications that were collected through branches were still being processed at the time this went into print. The official result of the IPO is expected to be released at noon today.

The issue worth Rs. 4 billion had all leading brokers recommending it as a medium to long term ‘buy’.

The biggest since Dialog Telekom’s offer in 2005, it closed yesterday by 4:30 p.m. Majority view preceding the opening was that it would be comfortably oversubscribed since it was up for subscription for the investing public since 1 June. The Softlogic IPO involves 139 million shares at Rs. 29 each.

Several leading brokers who had researched the IPO and made their findings available to the Daily FT had recommended it as a buy. Among them are John Keells Stock Brokers, Bartleet Mallory Stockbrokers, Acuity Stockbrokers, TKS Holdings and IIFL Ceylon.