Two mobile cos to go public next year

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FE Report
Two leading mobile companies of the country -- Grameenphone (GP) and Aktel -- will go public by the middle of next year.
"We are confident that both the telephone companies are going to float shares within the said timeframe and the date of GP's share floatation will be fixed in a meeting scheduled at the end of this month," Bangladesh Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (BTRC) chairman Manzurul Alam said in a press briefing Monday at the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) board room.
His disclosure came after holding the first meeting of the newly established 11-member Market Promotional Committee of the DSE.
Members of the newly established body- president of Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce and Industry (MCCI) Latifur Rahman, president of Dhaka Chamber of Commerce and Industry Hossain Khaled, president of International Chamber of Commerce-Bangladesh (ICC-B) Mahbubur Rahman, chairman of Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Faruk Ahmad Siddiqi and president of DSE Abdullah Bokhari, among others attended the meeting.
Meeting sources said Monday's meeting also discussed the modalities of floatation of shares of state-owned Bangladesh Telegraph and Telephone Board (BTTB) and mobile phone company Teletalk.
"We have completed the groundworks on floatation of mobile companies' shares on the Bangladesh's growing stock market and as part of our efforts, the GP has already become a public limited company," the BTRC chief said.
He said that a senior executive of Telenor AS, the Norway-based parent company of GP met him recently and apprised him of GP's progress on share floatation.
The BTRC and SEC chairmen, however, could not indicate the IPO sizes of GP and Aktel.
"We are yet to be informed on the sizes of the shares of the mobile companies as some works are yet to be completed," the BTRC chief said.
Replying to a question on the possible offer prices of GP and Aktel shares, the SEC chairman said: "It depends on the companies' net worth and if we are convinced then both the companies could be permitted to the shares with premiums".
The SEC chairman further said that the existing IPO pricing method will not pose any problem to float shares by big companies like GP.
"We are also working on the book-building method for the primary stock market and hopefully the modern IPO pricing system will encourage other big companies to go public," the SEC chief said.
Market operators said the floatation of shares of the mobile companies will help end the growing disparity between demand and supply of quality scrips in the stock market.
"We are facing serious dearth of good issues as the market demand has surged several times," the DSE senior vice president Ahmad Rashid said.
The total market capitalisation of DSE has already crossed $ 10 billion-mark which in December of 2006 hovered below $ 5.0 billion.
"We have convinced the BTRC that the stock market is very much capable to absorb huge shares of the big companies under telecommunication, power and other sectors," DSE senior vice president told the FE.
BTRC vice chairman AMM Reza-e-Rabbi, director Rezaul Quader, DSE vice president Sharif Ataur Rahman and chief executive officer Salahuddin Ahmed Khan also attended the meeting.
Meanwhile, the cumulative investments of GP upto December 2006 stood at about Tk 76 billion making it one of the largest private sector investments in Bangladesh.
GP, the largest corporate taxpayer of the country, contributed Tk 20.5 billion in 2006 to the national exchequer. The accumulated contribution to the national exchequer from the company's inception upto December, 2006 was Tk 67.18 billion.
GP has more than 14 million subscribers as of July, 2007.
According to the latest annual report, the GP's net profit rose 21 per cent in 2006.
The profit of the company in 2006 rose to Tk 9.50 billion against Tk 6.91 billion of 2005.
The company's return on investment and asset turnover ratio in 2006 marked 36 per cent and 103 per cent rises over the previous year.
The earning per share and dividend per share in 2006 also rose to Tk 168 and Tk 25.8 against Tk 122 and Tk 21.5 respectively.
Telenor AS holds 62 per cent and Bangladesh-based Grameen Telecom owns 38 per cent shares of GP.
Telenor AS, a 150-year old company is the leading telecommunications company of Norway listed in both Oslo and NASDAQ Stock Exchanges.