The Initial Public Offer (IPO) of Agricultural Development Bank (ADB)  has finally taken off.

[contextly_sidebar id=”zpJo2gpl3a4C1ks1f6RA5U90R0gkzfyZ”]The launch follows approval from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

The launch was been put on hold several times following a number of law suits filed against the bank for the move.

The last suit that was filed against the launch of the offer was by the Member of Parliament  for  New Juaben South, Mark Assibey Yeboah, but was later withdrawn.

His lawyer, Alexander Afenyo Markin, who announced that at the Supreme court in October,2015  said the decision to withdraw the case was due to assurances by management of ADB to engage parliament to resolve the issues of contention.

But the reason cited  was vehemently denied  by lawyer for ADB  Tony Lithur, who stated that his clients never held talks with the plaintiff.

Citi Business News has gathered the launch of the IPO took off this morning and will run till the end of February, 2016.

ADB is hoping to raise a total of 398,454,178 cedis through the IPO.

A total of 74,888,369 shares belonging to the Bank of Ghana are to be sold while another set of 75,471,698 new shares from the bank proper will also be sold at a share price of 2 cedis 65 pesweas.

According to the bank of this amount it will dish out 191, 741 million cedis to the Bank of Ghana for its shares.

60 million of the cash raised will be used by the bank for expansion and refurbishment of its branch network.

About 49 million cedis for rebranding and staff rationalization.

The rest of the cash raised will be used for business applications-34 million, IT upgrades and other IT solutions-26 million cedis.

The rest will go into the bank’s new head office-8 million cedis, ATM expansion-16 million cedis and offer expenses – 13,480 milion cedis.

The shares can be bought at any ADB branch, Standard Chartered Bank (“SCB”) branch, IC Securities (Ghana) Limited or any Licensed Dealing Member (“LDM”) of the Ghana Stock Exchange (“GSE”).

Each application under the IPO must be for a minimum of 100 ADB Shares amounting to GHS 265.00 and in multiples of 10 ADB Shares thereafter.

By:  Vivian Kai Lokko/citifmonline.com/Ghana