Patronage of Agricultural Development Bank’s shares appears to be low with barely two weeks to end of the bank’s Initial Public Offer (IPO).
ADB is hoping to raise a total of 398,454,178 cedis from 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 pesewas on the Ghana Stock Exchange.
But in an interview with Citi Business News, the Head of Research at UMB Stock Brokers, Nana Kofi Agyeman Gyamfi said though there are indications of investors buying the shares, it has not been as high as expected.
“For those who wanted to buy it’s not an issue of whether they are interested in it or not. For some of our clients who are not in the country, they made funds available that when the IPO opens, we should buy the shares for them…This is because there was a lot of anticipation and how other banking stocks had fared. But we thought of helping them diversify the portfolios they have invested in”.
“It’s therefore difficult to say whether interested or not interested; though others complain about the price which they felt was a bit expensive but those who are interested are buying,” Nana Kofi Agyeman Gyamfi said.
He is however optimistic investors will rush for the shares in the last week of the closing date being the end of this month.
“People that we have spoken to say they will come and buy, they know the deadline. So for them we can’t push them and we know why they are waiting because they feel that if they invested the monies in short term instruments on the money market, they could earn some interest than come and give to you for the six weeks before the deadline and they will not get any interest and so we know there will be a rush leading to the closing date especially within the last week.” He noted.
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By: Norvan Acquah – Hayford/citibusinessnews.com/Ghana
